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GIIT 


Amiel's  Journal 

THE  JOURNAL  INTIME  OF 

henri-fr£d£ric  AMIEL 


TRANSLATED,  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES 

^Y  Mrs.  HUMPHREY  WARD 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS, 


'T-'CL  .      UNivhrsity  of  CAUFOH*  IA 

SANTA  BARBARA  COLLEGE  L  BRAKY 
7-5^ 

PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 

In  this  second  edition  of  the  English  translation  of 
Amiel's  "  Journal  Intime,"  I  have  inserted  a  good  many  new 
passages,  taken  from  the  last  French  edition  ( Cinquwme 
edition^  revue  et  migmentee.)  But  I  have  not  translated 
all  the  fresh  material  to  be  found  in  that  edition  nor  have 
I  omitted  certain  sections  of  the  Journal  which  in  these  two 
recent  volumes  have  been  omitted  by  their  French  editors. 
It  would  be  of  no  interest  to  give  my  reasons  for  these 
variations  at  length.  They  depend  upon  certain  differences, 
between  the  English  and  the  French  public,  which  are 
more  readily  felt  than  explained.  Some  of  the  passages 
which  I  have  left  untranslated  seemed  to  me  to  overweight 
the  introspective  side  of  the  Journal,  already  so  full — to 
overweight  it,  at  any  rate,  for  English  readers.  Others 
which  I  have  retained,  though  they  often  relate  to  local 
names  and  books,  more  or  less  unfamiliar  to  the  general 
public,  yet  seemed  to  me  valuable  as  supplying  some  of 
that  surrounding  detail,  that  setting,  which  helps  one  to- 
understand  a  life.  Besides,  we  English  are  in  many  ways 
more  akin  to  Protestant  and  Puritan  Geneva  than  the 
French  readers  to  whom  the  original  Journal  primarily 
addresses  itself,  and  some  of  the  entries  I  have  kept  have 
probably,  by  the  nature  of  things,  more  savor  for  us  than. 
for  them. 

M.  A.  W. 


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PREFACE. 

This  translation  of  Amiel's  "Journal  Intime"  is  pri- 
marily addressed  to  those  whose  knowledge  of  French, 
while  it  may  be  sufficient  to  carry  them  with  more  or  less 
complete  understanding  through  a  novel  or  a  newspaper, 
is  yet  not  enough  to  allow  them  to  understand  and  appre- 
ciate a  book  containing  subtle  and  complicated  forms  of 
expression.  I  believe  there  are  many  such  to  be  found 
among  the  reading  public,  and  among  those  who  would 
naturally  take  a  strong  interest  in  such  a  life  and  mind  as 
Amiel's,  were  it  not  for  the  barrier  of  language.  It  is,  at 
any  rate,  in  the  hope  that  a  certain  number  of  additional 
readers  may  be  thereby  attracted  to  the  "  Journal  Intime  " 
that  this  translation  of  it  has  been  undertaken. 

The  difficulties  of  the  translation  have  been  sometimes 
considerable,  owing,  first  of  all,  to  those  elliptical  modes 
of  speech  which  a  man  naturally  employs  when  he  is 
writing  for  himself  and  not  for  the  public,  but  which  a 
translator  at  all  events  is  bound  in  some  degree  to  expand. 
Every  here  and  there  Amiel  expresses  himself  in  a  kind 
of  shorthand,  perfectly  intelligible  to  a  Frenchman,  but  for 
which  an  English  equivalent,  at  once  terse  and  clear,  is 
hard  to  find.  Another  difficulty  has  been  his  constant  use 
of  a  technical  philosophical  language,  which,  according  to 
his  French  critics,  is  not  French — even  philosophical 
French — but  German.  Very  often  it  has  been  impossible 
to  give  any  other  than  a  literal  rendering  of  such  passages, 
if  the  thought  of  the  original  was  to  be  preserved ;  but  in 
those  cases  where  a  choice  was  open  to  me,  I  have  pre- 
ferred the  more  literary  to  the  more  technical  expression; 
and  I  have  been  encouraged  to  do  so  by  the  fact  that  Amiel, 
when  he  came  to  prepare  for  publication  a  certain  number 
of   "Pensees,"  extracted  from  the  Journal,  and  printed  at 


Yi  PREFACE. 

the  end  of  a  volume  of  poems  published  in  1853,  frequently 
softened  his  phrases,  so  that  sentences  which  survive  in  the 
Journal  in  a  more  technical  form  are  to  be  found  in  a  more 
literary  form  in  the  "Grains  de  Mil." 

In  two  or  three  cases — not  more,  I  think — I  have  allowed 
myself  to  transpose  a  sentence  bodily,  and  in  a  few  instances 
I  have  added  some  explanatory  words  to  the  text,  which 
wherever  the  addition  was  of  any  importance,  are  indicated 
by  square  brackets. 

My  warmest  thanks  are  due  to  my  friend  and  critic,  M. 
Edmond  Scherer,  from  whose  valuable  and  interesting 
study,  prefixed  to  the  French  Journal,  as  well  as  from  cer- 
tain materials  in  his  possession  which  he  has  very  kindly 
allowed  me  to  make  use  of,  I  have  drawn  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  biographical  material  embodied  in  the  Introduc- 
tion. M.  Scherer  has  also  given  me  help  and  advice 
througti  the  whole  process  of  translation — advice  which  his 
scholarly  knowledge  of  English  has  made  especially  worth 
having. 

In  the  translation  of  the  more  technical  philosophical 
passages  I  have  been  greatly  helped  by  another  friend,  Mr. 
Bernard  Bosanquet,  Fellow  of  University  College,  Oxford, 
the  translator  of  Lotze,  of  whose  care  and  pains  in  the  mat- 
ter I  cherish  a  grateful  remembrance. 

But  with  all  the  help  that  has  been  so  freely  given  me, 
not  only  by  these  friends  but  by  others,  I  confide  the  little 
book  to  the  public  with  many  a  misgiving!  May  it  at 
least  win  a  few  more  friends  and  readers  here  and  there 
■  for  one  who  lived  alone,  and  died  sadly  persuaded  that  his 
life  had  been  a  barren  mistake;  whereas,  all  the  while — 
such  is  the  irony  of  things — he  had  been  in  .reality  working 
out  the  mission  assigned  him  in  the  spiritual  economy, 
and  faithfully  obeying  the  secret  mandate  which  had  im- 
pressed itself  upon  his  youthful  consciousness:  "Let  the 
living  live;  and  you,  gather  together  your  thoughts,  leave 
behind  you  a  legacy  of  feeling  and  ideas;  you  will  be  most 
useful  so." 

Mary  A.  Ward. 


INTRODUCTION. 

It  was  in  the  last  days  of  December,  1882,  that  the  first 
volume  of  Henri  Frederic  Amiel's  "Journal  In  time"  was 
published  at  Geneva.  The  book,  of  which  the  general 
literary  world  knew  nothing  prior  to  its  appearance,  con- 
tained a  long  and  remarkable  Introduction  from  the  pen  of 
M.  Bdmond  Scherer,  the  well-known  French  critic,  who 
had  been  for  many  years  one  of  Amiel's  most  valued 
friends,  and  it  was  prefaced  also  by  a  little  Avertissementy 
in  which  the  "  Editors " — that  is  to  say,  the  Genevese 
friends  to  whom  the  care  and  publication  of  the  Journal 
had  been  in  the  first  instance  entrusted — described  in  a 
few  reserved  and  sober  words  the  genesis  and  objects  of  the 
publication.  Some  thousands  of  sheets  of  Journal,  cover- 
ing a  period  of  more  than  thirty  years,  had  come  into  the 
hands  of  Amiel's  literary  heirs.  "They  were  written," 
said  the  Avertissement,  "with  several  ends  in  view- 
Amiel  recorded  in  them  his  various  occupations,  and  the 
incidents  of  each  day.  He  preserved  in  them  his  psycholog- 
ical observations,  and  the  impressions  produced  on  him  by 
books.  But  his  Journal  was,  above  all,  the  confidant  of 
his  most  private  and  intimate  thoughts;  a  means  whereby 
the  thinker  became  conscious  of  his  own  inner  life ;  a  safe 
shelter  wherein  his  questionings  of  fate  and  the  future,  the 
voice  of  grief,  of  self-examination  and  confession,  the  soul's 
cry  for  inward  peace,  might  make  themselves  freely  heard. 
.  In  the  directions  concerning  his  papers  which 
he  left  behind  him,  Amiel  expressed  the  wish  that  his 
literary  executors  should  publish  those  parts  of  the 
Journal  which  might  seem  to  them  to  possess  either  inter- 
est as  thought  or  value  as  experience.  The  publication 
of    this    volume  is  the  fulfillment  of  this  desire.     The 


viii  INTRODUGTIOm 

reader  vriil  find  in  it,  not  a  volume  of  Memoirs,  but  the 
confidences  of  a  solitary  thinker,  the  meditations  of  a  phi- 
losopher for  whom  the  things  of  the  soul  were  the  sovereign 
realities  of  existence." 

Thus  modestly  announced,  the  little  volume  made  its 
quiet  debut.  It  contained  nothing,  or  almost  nothing, 
of  ordinary  biographical  material.  M.  Scherer's  Intro- 
duction supplied  such  facts  as  were  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  understanding  of  Amiel's  intellectual  history,  but 
nothing  more.  Everything  of  a  local  or  private  character 
that  could  be  excluded  was  excluded.  The  object  of  the 
editors  in  their  choice  of  passages  for  publication  was 
declared  to  be  simply  "  the  reproduction  of  the  moral  and 
intellectual  physiognomy  of  their  friend,"  while  M.  Scherer 
expressly  disclaimed  any  biographical  intentions,  and 
limited  his  Introduction  as  far  as  possible  to  "a  study  of 
the  character  and  thought  of  Amiel."  The  contents  of 
the  volume,  then,  were  purely  literary  and  philosophical; 
its  prevailing  tone  was  a  tone  of  introspection,  and  the 
public  which  can  admit  the  claims  and  overlook  the  inher- 
ent defects  of  introspective  literature  has  always  been  a 
Bmall  one.  The  writer  of  the  Journal  had  been  during 
his  lifetime  wholly  unknown  to  the  general  European 
public.  In  Geneva  itself  he  had  been  commonly  regarded 
as  a  man  who  had  signally  disappointed  the  hopes  and  ex- 
pectations of  his  friends,  whose  reserve  and  indecision  of 
character  had  in  many  respects  spoiled  his  life,  and  alienated 
the  society  around  him;  while  his  professional  lectures 
were  generally  pronounced  dry  and  unattractive,  and  the 
few  volumes  of  poems  which  represented  almost  his  only 
contributions  to  literature  had  nowhere  met  with  any  real 
cordiality  of  reception.  Those  concerned,  therefore,  in  the 
publication  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Journal  can  hardly 
have  had  much  expectation  of  a  wide  success.  Geneva  is 
not  a  favorable  starting-point  for  a  French  book,  and  it 
may  well  have  seemed  that  not  even  the  support  of  M. 
ScheKer's  name  would  be  likely  to  carry  the  volume  beyond 
a  small  local  circle. 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

But  "wisdom  is  justified  of  her  children ! "  It  is  now 
nearly  three  years  since  the  first  volume  of  the  "  Journal 
Intime  "  appeared ;  the  impression  made  by  it  was  deepened 
and  extended  by  the  publication  of  the  second  volume  in 
1884 ;  and  it  is  now  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  remark- 
able record  of  a  life  has  made  its  way  to  what  promises  to 
be  a  permanent  place  in  literature.  Among  those  who 
think  and  read  it  is  beginning  to  be  generally  recognized 
that  another  book  has  been  added  to  the  books  which  live — 
not  to  those,  perhaps,  which  live  in  the  public  view,  much 
discussed,  much  praised,  the  objects  of  feeling  and  of 
struggle,  but  to  those  in  which  a  germ  of  permanent  life 
has  been  deposited  silently,  almost  secretly,  which  compel 
no  homage  and  excite  no  rivalry,  and  which  owe  the  place 
that  the  world  half-unconsciously  yields  to  them  to  nothing 
but  that  indestructible  sympathy  of  man  with  man,  that 
eternal  answering  of  feeling  to  feeling,  which  is  one  of  the 
great  principles,  perhaps  the  greatest  principle,  at  the 
root  of  literature.  M.  Scherer  naturally  was  the  first 
among  the  recognized  guides  of  opinion  to  attempt  the 
placing  of  his  friend's  Journal.  "The  man  who,  during 
his  lifetime,  was  incapable  of  giving  us  any  deliberate  or 
conscious  work  worthy  of  his  powers,  has  now  left  us,  after 
his  death,  a  book  which  will  not  die.  For  the  secret  of 
Amiel's  malady  is  sublime,  and  the  expression  of  it  won- 
derful." So  ran  one  of  the  last  paragraphs  of  the  Intro- 
duction, and  one  may  see  in  the  sentences  another  instance 
of  that  courage,  that  reasoned  rashness,  which  distin- 
guishes the  good  from  the  mediocre  critic.  For  it  is  as 
true  now  as  it  was  in  the  daye  when  La  Bruyere  rated  the 
critics  of  his  time  for  their  incapacity  to  praise,  and  praise 
at  once,  that  "the  surest  test  of  a  man's  critical  power  is 
his  judgment  of  contemporaries."  M.  Eenan,  I  think, 
Avith  that  exquisite  literary  sense  of  his,  was  the  next 
among  the  authorities  to  mention  Amiel's  name  with  the 
emphasis  it  deserved.  He  quoted  a  passage  from  the 
Journal  in  his  Preface  to  the  "Souvenirs  d'Enfance  et  de 
Jeunesse,"  describing  it    as    th©   saying   ^'d^vn  penseur 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

distinguS,  M,  Amiel  de  Genive.^^  Since  then  M.  Renan 
has  devoted  two  curious  articles  to  the  completed  Journal 
in  the  Journal  des  Deshats.  The  first  object  of  these 
reviews,  no  doubt,  was  not  so  much  the  critical  apprecia- 
tion of  Amiel  as  the  development  of  certain  paradoxes 
which  have  been  haunting  various  corners  of  M.  Kenan's 
"mind  for  several  years  past,  and  to  which  it  is  to  be  hoped 
he  has  now  given  expression  with  sufficient  emphasis  and 
br?<squerie  to  satisfy  even  his  passion  for  intellectual  ad- 
venture. Still,  the  rank  of  the  book  was  fully  recognized, 
and  the  first  article  especially  contained  some  remarkable 
criticisms,  to  which  we  shall  find  occasion  to  recur.  "  In 
these  two  volumes  of  pensees,"  said  M.  Eenan,  "  without  any 
sacrifice  of  truth  to  artistic  effect,  we  have  both  the  perfect 
mirror  of  a  modern  mind  of  the  best  type,  matured  by  the 
best  modern  culture,  and  also  a  striking  picture  of  the 
sufferings  which  beset  the  sterility  of  genius.  These  two 
volumes  may  certainly  be  reckoned  among  the  most  inter- 
esting philosophical  writings  which  have  appeared  of  late 
years." 

M.  Caro's  article  on  the  first  volume  of  the  Journal,  in 
the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  for  February,  1883,  may 
perhaps  count  as  the  first  introduction  of  the  book  to  the 
general  cultivated  public.  He  gave  a  careful  analysis  of 
the  first  half  of  the  Journal — resumed  eighteen  months 
later  in  the  same  periodical  on  the  appearance  of  the 
second  volume — and,  while  protesting  against  what  he  con- 
ceived to  be  the  general  tendency  and  effect  of  Amiel's 
mental  story,  he  showed  himself  fully  conscious  of  the  rare 
and  delicate  qualities  of  the  new  writer.  "  La  reverie  a 
reussi  a  notre  auteur,^^  he  says,  a  little  reluctantly — for  M. 
Caro  has  his  doubts  as  to  the  legitimacy  of  reverie;  ^'il  en 
aufait  une  CBUvure  qui  restera."  The  same  final  Judgment, 
accompanied  by  a  very  different  series  of  comments,  was 
pronounced  on  the  Journal  a  year  later  by  M.Paul  Bourget, 
a  young  and  rising  writer,  whose  article  is  perhaps  chiefly 
interesting  as  showing  the  kind  of  effect  produced  by 
Amiel's  thought  on  minds  of  a  type  essentially  alien  from 


IJSfTltODUCTION.  xi 

his  owu.  There  is  a  leaven  of  something  positive  and  aus- 
tere, of  something  which,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  one 
calls  Puritanism,  in  Amiel,  which  escapes  the  author  of 
"Une  Cruelle  Enigme."  But  whether  he  has  understood 
Amiel  or  no,  M.  Bourget  is  fully  alive  to  the  mark  which 
the  Journal  is  likely  to  make  among  modern  records  of 
mental  history.  He,  too,  insists  that  the  book  is  already 
famous  and  will  remain  so;  in  the  first  place,  because  of 
its  inexorable  realism  and  sincerity;  in  the  second,  because 
it  is  the  most  perfect  example  available  of  a  certain  variety 
of  the  modern  mind. 

Among  ourselves,  although  the  Journal  has  attracted 
the  attention  of  all  who  keep  a  vigilant  eye  on  the  progress 
of  foreign  literature,  and  although  one  or  two  appreciative 
articles  have  appeared  on  it  in  the  magazines,  the  book  has 
still  to  become  generally  known.  One  remarkable  English 
testimony  to  it,  however,  must  be  quoted.  Six  months  after 
the  publication  of  the  first  volume,  the  late  Mark  Pattison, 
who  since  then  has  himself  bequeathed  to  literature  a  strange 
and  memorable  fragment  of  autobiography,  addressed  a  letter 
to  M.  Scherer  as  the  editor  of  the  "Journal  Intime,"  which 
M.  Scherer  has  since  published,  nearly  a  year  after  the 
death  of  the  writer.  The  words  have  a  strong  and  melan- 
choly interest  for  all  who  knew  Mark  Pattison;  and  they 
certainly  deserve  a  place  in  any  attempt  to  estimate  the 
impression  already  made  on  contemporary  thought  by  the 
"Journal  Intime." 

"I  wish  to  convey  to  you,  sir,"  writes  the  rector  of 
Lincoln,  "the  thanks  of  one  at  least  of  the  public  for 
giving  the  light  to  this  precious  record  of  a  unique  experi- 
ence. I  say  unique,  but  I  can  vouch  that  there  is  in  exist- 
ence at  least  one  other  soul  which  has  lived  through  the  same 
struggles,  mental  and  moral,  as  Amiel.  In  your  pathetic 
description  of  the  volonte  qui  voudrait  vouloir,  mais  impuis- 
sante  a  se  fourfiir  a  elle-meme  des  motifs — of  the  repug- 
nance for  all  action — the  soul  petrified  by  the  sentiment  of 
the  infinite,  in  all  this  I  recognize  myself.  Celui  qui  a 
dechiffre  le  secret  de  la  vie  finie,  qui  en  a  lu  le  mot,  est 


xii  INTRODUCTION. 

sorii  du  monde  des  vivanfs,  il  est  mort  defait.  I  can  feel 
foicibly  the  truth  of  this,  as  it  applies  to  myself! 

"It  is  not,  however,  with  the  view  of  thrusting  my 
egotism  upon  you  that  I  have  ventured  upon  addressing 
you.  As  I  cannot  suppose  that  so  peculiar  a  psychological 
revelation  will  enjoy  a  wide  popularity,  I  think  it  a  duty 
to  the  editor  to  assure  him  that  there  are  persons  in  the 
world  whose  souls  respond,  in  the  depths  of  their  inmost 
nature,  to  the  cry  of  anguish  which  makes  itself  heard  in 
the  pages  of  these  remarkable  confessions." 

So  much  for  the  place  which  the  Journal — the  fruit  of  so 
many  years  of  painful  thought  and  disappointed  eif ort ;  seems 
to  be  at  last  securing  for  its  author  among  those  contempor- 
aries who  in  his  lifetime  knew  nothing  of  him.  It  is  a  nat- 
ural consequence  of  the  success  of  the  book  that  the  more 
it  penetrates,  the  greater  desire  there  is  to  know  something 
more  than  its  original  editors  and  M.  Scherer  have  yet 
told  us  about  the  personal  history  of  the  man  who  wrote  it 
— about  his  education,  his  habits,  and  his  friends.  Perhaps 
some  day  this  wish  may  find  its  satisfaction.  It  is  an  inno- 
cent one,  and  the  public  may  even  be  said  to  have  a  kind 
of  right  to  know  as  much  as  can  be  told  it  of  the  person- 
alities which  move  and  stir  it.  At  present  the  biographical 
material  available  is  extremely  scanty,  and  if  it  were  not 
for  the  kindness  of  M.  Scherer,  who  has  allowed  the  pres- 
ent writer  access  to  certain  manuscript  material  in  his 
possession,  even  the  sketch  which  follows,  vague  and  imper- 
fect as  it  necessarily  is,  would  have  been  impossible.* 

Henri  Frederic  Amiel  was  born  at  Geneva  in  September, 
1821.  He  belonged  to  one  of  the  emigrant  families,  of 
which  a  more  or  less  steady  supply  had  enriched  the  little 
republic  during  the  three  centuries  following  the  Reforma- 
tion.     Amiel's  ancestors,   like    those  of    Sismondi,    left 

*  Four  or  five  articles  on  the  subject  of  Amiel's  life  have  been  con- 
tributed to  the  Revue  Internationale  by  Mdlle.  Berthe  Vadier  during 
the  passage  of  the  present  book  through  the  press.  My  knowledge 
of  them,  however,  came  too  late  to  enable  me  to  make  use  of  them 
tnr  th«  DurDoses  of  the  oresent  introducTlon 


INTRODUCTION'.  xiii 

Languedoc  for  Geneva  after  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes.  His  father  must  have  been  a  youth  at  the  time 
when  Geneva  passed  into  the  power  of  the  French  repub- 
lic, and  would  seem  to  have  married  and  settled  in  the 
halcyon  days  following  the  restoration  of  Genevese  inde- 
pendence in  1814.  Amiel  was  born  when  the  prosperity  of 
Geneva  was  at  its  height,  when  the  little  state  was  admin- 
istered by  men  of  European  reputation,  and  Genevese 
society  had  power  to  attract  distinguished  visitors  and  ad- 
mirers from  all  parts.  The  veteran  Bonstetten,  who  had 
been  the  friend  of  Gray  and  the  associate  of  Voltaire,  was 
still  talking  and  enjoying  life  in  his  appartement  over- 
looking the  woods  of  La  Batie.  Kossi  and  Sismondi  were 
busy  lecturing  to  the  Genevese  youth,  or  taking  part  in 
Genevese  legislation ;  an  active  scientific  group,  headed  by 
the  Pictets,  De  la  Eive,  and  the  botanist  Auguste-Pyrame 
de  Candolle,  kept  the  country  abreast  of  European  thought 
and  speculation,  while  the  mixed  nationality  of  the  place — 
the  blending  in  it  of  French  keenness  with  Protestant 
enthusiasms  and  Protestant  solidity — was  beginning  to  find 
inimitable  and  characteristic  expression  in  the  stories  of 
Topffer.  The  country  was  governed  by  an  aristocracy, 
which  was  not  so  much  an  aristocracy  of  birth  as  one  of 
merit  and  intellect,  and  the  moderate  constitutional  ideas, 
which  represented  the  Liberalism  of  the  post- Waterloo 
period  were  nowhere  more  warmly  embraced  or  more  intelli- 
gently carried  out  than  in  Geneva. 

During  the  years,  however,  which  immediately  followed 
Amiel's  birth,  some  signs  of  decadence  began  to  be  visible 
in  this  brilliant  Genevese  society.  The  generation  which 
had  waited  for,  prepared,  and  controlled,  the  Eestoration 
of  1814,  was  falling  into  the  background,  and  the  younger 
generation,  with  all  its  respectability,  wanted  energy, 
above  all,  wanted  leaders.  The  revolutionary  forces  in  the 
state,  which  had  made  themselves  violently  felt  during  the 
civil  turmoils  of  the  period  preceding  the  assembly  of  the 
French  States  General,  and  had  afterward  produced  the 
miniature  Terror  which  forced  Sismondi  into  exile,  had 


xi  V  INTROD  UCTION. 

been  for  aAvhile  laid  to  sleep  by  the  events  of  1814.  But 
the  slumber  was  a  short  one  at  Geneva  as  elsewhere,  and 
when  Rossi  quitted  the  republic  for  France  in  1833,  he  did 
so  with  a  mind  full  of  misgivings  as  to  the  political  future 
of  the  little  state  which  had  given  him — an  exile  and  a 
Catholic — so  generous  a  welcome  in  1819.  The  ideas  of 
1830  were  shaking  the  fabric  and  disturbing  the  equili- 
brium of  the  Swiss  Confederation  as  a  whole,  and  of  many 
of  the  cantons  composing  it.  Geneva  was  still  apparently 
tranquil  while  her  neighbors  were  disturbed,  but  no  one 
looking  back  on  the  history  of  the  republic,  and  able  to 
measure  the  strength  of  the  Eadical  force  in  Europe  after 
the  fall  of  Charles  X.,  could  have  felt  much  doubt  but  that 
a  few  more  years  would  bring  Geneva  also  into  the  whirl- 
pool of  political  change. 

In  the  same  year — 1833 — that  M.  Eossi  had  left  Geneva, 
Henri  Frederic  Amiel,  at  twelve  years  old,  was  left 
orphaned  of  both  his  parents.  They  had  died  comparatively 
young — his  mother  was  only  just  over  thirty,  and  his 
father  cannot  have  been  much  older.  On  the  death  of  the 
mother  the  little  family  was  broken  up,  the  boy  passing 
into  the  care  of  one  relative,  his  two  sisters  into  that  of 
another.  Certain  notes  in  M.  Scherer's  possession  throw 
a  little  light  here  and  there  upon  a  childhood  and  youth 
which  must  necessarily  have  been  a  little  bare  and  forlorn. 
They  show  us  a  sensitive,  impressionable  boy,  of  health 
rather  delicate  than  robust,  already  disposed  to  a  more  or 
less  melancholy  and  dreamy  view  of  life,  and  showing  a 
deep  interest  in  those  religious  problems  and  ideas  in 
which  the  air  of  Geneva  has  been  steeped  since  the  days  of 
Calvin.  The  religious  teaching  which  a  Genevese  lad 
undergoes  prior  to  his  admission  to  full  church  member- 
ship, made  a  deep  impression  on  him,  and  certain  mystical 
elements  of  character,  which  remained  strong  in  him  to 
the  end,  showed  themselves  very  early.  At  the  college 
or  public  school  of  Geneva,  and  at  the  academic,  he  would 
seem  to  have  done  only  moderately  as  far  as  prizes  and 
honors  were  concerned.     We  are  told,  however,  that  he 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

read  enormously,  and  that  he  was,  generally  speaking, 
inclined  rather  to  make  friends  with  men  older  than  him- 
self than  with  his  contemporaries.  He  fell  specially  under 
the  influence  of  Adolphe  Pictet,  a  brilliant  philologist 
and  man  of  letters  belonging  to  a  well-known  Genet ese 
family,  and  in  later  life  he  was  able,  while  reviewing  one 
of  M.  Pictet's  books,  to  give  grateful  expression  to  his 
sense  of  obligation. 

Writing  in  1856  he  describes  the  effect  produced  in  Geneva 
by  M.  Pictet's  Lectures  on  Esthetics  in  1840 — the  first  ever 
delivered  in  a  town  in  which  the  Beautiful  had  been  for 
centuries  regarded  as  the  rival  and  enemy  of  the  True. 
"He  who  is  now  writing,"  says  Amiel,  "was  then  among 
M.  Pictet's  youngest  hearers.  Since  then  twenty  experi- 
ences of  the  same  kind  have  followed  each  other  in  his 
intellectual  experience,  yet  none  has  effaced  the  deep  im- 
pression made  upon  him  by  these  lectures.  Coming  as  they 
did  at  a  favorable  moment,  and  answering  many  a  positive 
question  and  many  a  vague  aspiration  of  youth,  they  exer- 
cised a  decisive  influence  over  his  thought;  they  were  to 
him  an  important  step  in  that  continuous  initiation  which 
we  call  life,  they  filled  him  with  fresh  intuitions,  they 
brought  near  to  him  the  horizons  of  his  dreams.  And,  as 
always  happens  with  a  first-rate  man,  what  struck  him 
even  more  than  the  teaching  was  the  teacher.  So  that  this 
memory  of  1840  is  still  dear  and  precious  to  him,  and  for 
this  double  service,  which  is  not  of  the  kind  one  forgets, 
the  student  of  those  days  delights  in  expressing  to  the  pro- 
fessor of  1840  his  sincere  and  filial  gratitude." 

Amiel's  first  literary  production,  or  practically  his  first, 
seems  to  have  been  the  result  partly  of  these  lectures,  and 
partly  of  a  visit  to  Italy  which  began  in  November,  1841. 
In  1842,  a  year  which  was  spent  entirely  in  Italy  and 
Sicily,  he  contributed  three  articles  on  M.  Eio's  book, 
"L'Art  Chretien,"  to  the  Bihliotheque  Universelle  de 
Geneve.  We  see  in  them  the  young  student  conscien- 
tiously writing  his  first  review — writing  it  at  inordinate 
length,  as  young  reviewers  are  apt  to  do,  and  treating  the 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

subject  ah  ovo  in  a  grave,  pontifical  way,  which  is  a  little 
naive  and  inexperienced  indeed,  but  still  promising,  as  all 
seriousness  of  work  and  purpose  is  promising.  All  that  is 
individual  in  it  is  first  of  all  the  strong  Christian  feeling 
which  much  of  it  shows,  and  secondly,  the  tone  of  melan- 
choly which  already  makes  itself  felt  here  and  there, 
especially  in  one  rather  remarkable  passage.  As  to  the 
Christian  feeling,  we  find  M.  Eio  described  as  belonging 
to  "  that  noble  school  of  men  who  are  striving  to  rekindle 
the  dead  beliefs  of  France,  to  rescue  Frenchmen  from  the 
camp  of  materialistic  or  pantheistic  ideas,  and  rally  them 
round  that  Christian  banner  which  is  the  banner  of  true 
progress  and  true  civilization."  The  Renaissance  is  treated 
as  a  disastrous  but  inevitable  crisis,  in  which  the  idealism 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  dethroned  by  the  naturalism  of 
modern  times — "The  Eenaissance  perhaps  robbed  us  of 
more  than  it  gave  us" — and  so  on.  The  tone  of  criticism 
is  instructive  enough  to  the  student  of  Amiel's  mind,  but 
the  product  itself  has  no  particular  savor  of  its  own.  The 
occasional  note  of  depression  and  discouragement,  how- 
ever, is  a  different  thing;  here,  for  those  who  know  the 
"Journal  Intime,"  there  is  already  something  characteristic, 
something  which  foretells  the  future.  For  instance,  after 
dwelling  with  evident  zest  on  the  nature  of  the  metaphys- 
ical problems  lying  at  the  root  of  art  in  general,  and 
Christian  art  in  particular,  the  writer  goes  on  to  set  the 
difficulty  of  M.  Eio's  task  against  its  attractiveness,  to 
insist  on  the  intricacy  of  the  investigations  involved,  and 
on  the  impossibility  of  making  the  two  instruments  on 
which  their  success  depends — the  imaginative  and  the 
analytical  faculty — work  harmoniously  and  effectively 
together.  And  supposing  the  goal  achieved,  supposing  a 
man  by  insight  and  patience  has  succeeded  in  forcing  his 
way  farther  than  any  previous  explorer  into  the  recesses  of 
the  Beautiful  or  the  True,  there  still  remains  the  enormous, 
the  insuperable  difficulty  of  expression,  of  fit  and  adequate 
communication  from  mind  to  mind ;  there  still  remains  the 
question  whether,  after  all,  "he  who  discovers  a  new  world 


INTRODnGTION:  xvii 

in  the  depths  of  the  invisible  would  not  do  wisely  to  plant 
on  ii  a  flag  known  to  himself  alone,  and,  like  Achilles, 
*devour  his  heart  in  secret;'  whether  the  greatest  problems 
which  have  ever  been  guessed  on  earth  had  not  better  have 
remained  buried  in  the  brain  which  had  found  the  key  to 
them,  and  whether  the  deepest  thinkers — those  whose 
hand  has  been  boldest  in  drawing  aside  the  veil,  and  theii 
eye  keenest  in  fathoming  the  mysteries  beyond  it — had  not 
better,  like  the  prophetess  of  Ilion,  have  kept  for  heaven, 
and  heaven  only,  secrets  and  mysteries  which  human 
tongue  cannot  truly  express,  nor  human  intelligence 
conceive." 

Curious  words  for  a  beginner  of  twenty-one !  There  is  a 
touch,  no  doubt,  of  youth  and  fatuity  in  the  passage;  one 
feels  how  much  the  vague  sonorous  phrases  have  pleased 
the  writer's  immature  literary  sense;  but  there  is  some- 
thing else  too — there  is  a  breath  of  that  same  speculative 
passion  which  burns  in  the  Journal,  and  one  hears,  as  it 
were,  the  first  accents  of  a  melancholy,  the  first  expression 
of  a  mood  of  mind,  which  became  in  after  years  the  fixed 
characteristic  of  the  writer.  "  At  twenty  he  was  already 
proud,  timid,  and  melancholy,"  writes  an  old  friend;  and 
a  little  farther  on,  "  Discouragement  took  possession  of  him 
very  early." 

However,  in  spite  of  this  inbred  tendency,  which  was 
probably  hereditary  and  inevitable,  the  years  which  followed 
these  articles,  from  1842  to  Christmas,  1848,  were  years  of 
happiness  and  steady  intellectual  expansion.  They  were 
Amiel's  Wanderjahre,  spent  in  a  free,  wandering  student 
life,  which  left  deep  marks  on  his  intellectual  development. 
During  four  years,  from  1844  to  1848,  his  headquarters 
were  at  Berlin;  but  every  vacation  saw  him  exploring 
some  new  country  or  fresh  intellectual  center — Scandinavia 
in  1845,  Holland  in  1846,  Vienna,  Munich,  and  Tubingen 
in  1848,  while  Paris  had  already  attracted  him  in  1841,  and 
he  was  to  make  acquaintance  with  London  ten  years  later, 
in  1851.  No  circumstances  could  have  been  more  favor- 
able, one  would  have  thoup-lit.  to  the  development  of  such 


xviii  INTRODUCTION. 

a  nature.  With  his  extraordinary  power  of  "  throwing  him- 
self into  the  object " — of  effacing  himself  and  his  own  per- 
sonality in  the  presence  of  the  thing  to  be  undertsood  and 
absorbed — he  must  have  passed  these  years  of  travel  and 
acquisition  in  a  state  of  continuous  intellectual  energy  and 
excitement.  It  is  in  no  spirit  of  conceit  that  he  says  in 
1857,  comparing  himself  with  Maine  de  Biran,  "This 
nature  is,  as  it  were,  only  one  of  the  men  which  exist  in 
me.  My  horizon  is  vaster;  I  have  seen  much  more  of 
men,  things,  countries,  peoples,  books;  I  have  a  greater 
mass  of  experiences."  This  fact,  indeed,  of  a  wide  and 
varied  personal  experience,  must  never  be  forgotten  iu  any 
critical  estimate  of  Amiel  as  a  man  or  writer.  We  may 
so  easily  conceive  him  as  a  sedentary  professor,  with  the 
ordinary  professorial  knowledge,  or  rather  ignorance,  of 
men  and  the  world,  falling  into  introspection  under  the 
pressure  of  circumstance,  and  for  want,  as  it  were,  of  some- 
thing else  to  think  about.  Not  at  all.  The  man  who  has 
left  us  these  microscopic  analyses  of  his  own  moods  and 
feelings,  had  penetrated  more  or  less  into  the  social  and 
intellectual  life  of  half  a  dozen  European  countries,  and 
was  familiar  not  only  with  the  books,  but,  to  a  large  extent 
also,  with  the  men  of  his  generation.  The  meditative  and 
introspective  gift  was  in  him,  not  the  product,  but  the 
mistress  of  circumstance.  It  took  from  the  outer  world 
what  that  world  had  to  give,  and  then  made  the  stuff  so 
gained  subservient  to  its  own  ends. 

Of  these  years  of  travel,  however,  the  four  years  spent  at 
Berlin  were  by  far  the  most  important.  "  It  was  at  Heidel- 
berg and  Berlin,"  says  M.  Scherer,  "that  the  world  of 
science  and  speculation  first  opened  on  the  dazzled  eyes  of 
the  young  man.  He  was  accustomed  to  speak  of  his  four 
years  at  Berlin  as  'his  intellectual  phase,'  and  one  felt  that 
he  inclined  to  regard  them  as  the  happiest  period  of  his 
life.  The  spell  which  Berlin  laid  upon  him  lasted  long." 
Probably  his  happiness  in  Germany  was  partly  owing  to  a 
sense  of  reaction  against  Geneva.  There  are  signs  that  he 
had  felt  himself  somewhat  isolated  at  school  and  college, 


INTRODUCTION.  '  xix 

and  that  in  the  German  world  his  special  individuality, 
with  its  dreaminess  and  its  melancholy,  found  congenial 
surroundings  far  more  readily  than  had  been  the  case  in 
the  drier  and  harsher  atmosphere  of  the  Protestant  Rome. 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  German  thought 
took  possession  of  him,  that  he  became  steeped  not  only  in 
German  methods  of  speculation,  but  in  German  modes  of 
expression,  in  German  forms  of  sentiment,  which  clung  to 
him  through  life,  and  vitally  affected  both  his  opinions 
and  his  style.  M.Renan  and  M.Bourget  shake  their  heads 
over  the  Germanisms,  which,  according  to  the  latter,  give  a 
certain  "  barbarous  "  air  to  many  passages  of  the  Journal. 
But  both  admit  that  Amiel's  individuality  owes  a  great 
part  of  its  penetrating  force  to  that  intermingling  of  Ger- 
man with  French  elements,  of  which  there  are  such  abun- 
dant traces  in  the  "Journal  Intime."  Amiel,  in  fact,  is 
one  more  typical  product  of  a  movement  which  is  certainly 
of  enormous  importance  in  the  history  of  modern  thought, 
even  though  we  may  not  be  prepared  to  assent  to  all 
the  sweeping  terms  in  which  a  writer  like  M.  Taine 
describes  it.  "From  1780  to  1830,"  says  M.  Taine, 
"Germany  produced  all  the  ideas  of  our  historical 
age,  and  during  another  half -century,  perhaps  another 
century,  notre  gr ancle  affaire  sera  de  les  repenser.^''  He  is 
inclined  to  compare  the  influence  of  German  ideas  on  the 
modern  world  to  the  ferment  of  the  Renaissance.  No 
spiritual  force  "more  original,  more  universal,  more  fruit- 
ful in  consequences  of  every  sort  and  bearing,  more  capable 
of  transforming  and  remaking  everything  presented  to  it, 
has  arisen  during  the  last  three  hundred  years.  Like  the 
spirit  of  the  Renaissance  and  of  the  classical  age,  it  attracts 
into  its  orbit  all  the  great  works  of  contemporary  intelli- 
gence." Quinet,  pursuing  a  somewhat  different  line  of 
thought,  regards  the  worship  of  German  ideas  inaugurated 
in  France  by  Madame  de  Stacl  as  the  natural  result  of 
reaction  from  the  eighteenth  century  and  all  its  ways. 
"  German  systems,  German  hypotheses,  beliefs,  and  poetry, 
all  were  eagerly  welcomed  as  a  cure  for  hearts  crushed  by 


XX  [NTRODUCTION. 

the  mockery  of  Candide  and  the  materialism  of  the  Revo- 
lution. .  .  .  Under  the  Restoration  France  continued 
to  study  German  philosophy  and  poetry  with  profound 
veneration  and  submission.  We  imitated,  translated,  com- 
piled, and  then  again  we  compiled,  translated,  imitated." 
The  importance  of  the  part  played  by  German  influence  in 
French  Romanticism  has  indeed  been  much  disputed,  but 
the  debt  of  French  metaphysics,  French  philology,  and 
French  historical  study,  to  German  methods  and  German  re- 
search during  the  last  half-century  is  beyond  dispute.  And 
the  movement  to-day  is  as  strong  as  ever.  A  modern  critic 
like  M.  Darmstetter  regards  it  as  a  misfortune  that  the 
artificial  stimulus  given  by  the  war  to  the  study  of  German 
has,  to  some  extent,  checked  the  study  of  English  in 
France.  He  thinks  that  the  French  have  more  to  gain 
from  our  literature — taking  literature  in  its  general  and 
popular  sense — than  from  German  literature.  But  he 
raises  no  question  as  to  the  inevitable  subjection  of  the 
French  to  the  German  mind  in  matters  of  exact  thought 
and  knowledge.  "  To  study  philology,  mythology,  history, 
without  reading  German,"  he  is  as  ready  to  confess  as  any 
one  else,  "is  to  condemn  one's  self  to  remain  in  every 
department  twenty  years  behind  the  progress  of  science." 
Of  this  great  movement,  already  so  productive,  Amiel  is 
then  a  fresh  and  remarkable  instance.  Having  caught 
from  the  Germans  not  only  their  love  of  exact  knowledge 
but  also  their  love  of  vast  horizons,  their  insatiable  curiosity 
as  to  the  whence  and  whither  of  all  things,  their  sense  of  mys- 
tery and  immensity  in  the  universe,  he  then  brings  those 
elements  in  him  which  belong  to  his  French  inheritance — 
and  something  individual  besides,  which  is  not  French  but 
Genevese — to  bear  on  his  new  acquisitions,  and  the  result 
is  of  the  highest  literary  interest  and  value.  Not  that  he 
succeeds  altogether  in  the  task  of  fusion.  For  one  who 
was  to  write  and  think  in  French,  ho  was  perhaps  too  long 
in  Germany;  he  had  drunk  too  deeply  of  German  thought; 
he  had  been  too  much  dazzled  by  the  spectacle  of  Berlin 
and  its  imposing  intellectual  activities.  "  As  to  his  literary 


INTRODUCTION.  xx^ 

talent."  says  M.  Scherer,  after  dwelling  on  the  rapid 
growth  of  his  intellectual  powers  under  German  influence, 
"  the  profit  which  Amiel  derived  from  his  stay  at  Berlin  is 
more  doubtful.  Too  long  contact  with  the  German  mind 
had  led  to  the  development  in  him  of  certain  strangenesses 
of  style  which  he  had  afterward  to  get  rid  of,  and  even 
perhaps  of  some  habits  of  thought  which  he  afterward  felt 
the  need  of  checking  and  correcting."  This  is  very  true. 
Amiel  is  no  doubt  often  guilty,  as  M.  Caro  puts  it,  of 
attempts  "to  write  German  in  French,"  and  there  are  in 
his  thought  itself  veins  of  mysticism,  elements  of  Schwdr- 
mereiy  here. and  there,  of  which  a  good  deal  must  be  laid 
to  the  account  of  his  German  training. 

M.  Renan  regrets  that  after  Geneva  and  after  Berlin  he 
never  came  to  Paris.  Paris,  he  thinks,  would  have  coun- 
teracted the  Hegelian  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  him 
at  Berlin,*  would  have  taught  him  cheerfulness,  and 
taught  him  also  the  art  of  writing,  not  beautiful  fragments, 
but  a  book.  Possibly — but  how  much  we  should  have 
lost!  Instead  of  the  Amiel  we  know,  we  should  have  had 
one  accomplished  French  critic  the  more.  Instead  of  the 
spiritual  drama  of  the  "Journal  In  time,"  some  further 
additions  to  French  belles  lettres;  instead  of  somethin;^  to 
love,  something  to  admire!  No,  there  is  no  wishing  the 
German  element  in  Amiel  away.  Its  invading,  troubling 
effect  upon  his  thought  and  temperament  goes  far  to  ex- 
plain the  interest  and  suggestiveness  of  his  mental  history. 
The  language  he  speaks  is  the  language  of  that  French 
criticism  which — we  have  Sainte-Beuve's  authority  for  it 
— is  best  described  by  the  motto  of  Montaigne,  ^' Un  pen 
de  chaque  chose  et  rien  de  Vensemhle-^  a  la  frariQaise.,^''  and 
the  thought  he  tries  to  express  in  it  is  thought  torn  and 
strained  by  the  constant  effort  to  reach  the  All,  the  totality 
of  things:  "What  I  desire  is  the  sum  of  all  desires,  and 
what  I  seek  to  know  is  the  sum  of  all  different  kinds  of 
knowledge.     Always  the  complete,  the  absolute,  the  te^es 

*  See  a  note,  however,  on  the  subject  of  Amiel's  philosophic*  I  re- 
lationships, printed  as  an  Appendix  to  the  present  volume. 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

atque  rotundum. "  And  it  was  this  antagonism,  or  rathei 
this  fusion  of  traditions  in  him,  which  went  far  to  make 
him  original,  which  opened  to  him,  that  is  to  say,  so  many 
new  lights  on  old  paths,  and  stirred  in  him  such  capacities 
of  fresh  and  individual  expression. 

We  have  been  carried  forward,  however,  a  little  too  far 
by  this  general  discussion  of  Amiel's  debts  to  Germany. 
Let  us  take  up  the  biographical  thread  again.  In  1848 
his  Berlin  apprenticeship  came  to  an  end,  and  he  returned 
to  Geneva.  "How  many  places,  how  many  impressions, 
observations,  thoughts — how  many  forms  of  men  and 
things — have  passed  before  me  and  in  me  since  April, 
1843,"  he  writes  in  the  Journal,  two  or  three  months  after 
his  return.  "  The  last  seven  years  have  been  the  most  im- 
portant of  my  life;  they  have  been  the  novitiate  of  my 
intelligence,  the  initiation  of  my  being  into  being."  The 
first  literary  evidence  of  his  matured  powers  is  to  be  found 
in  two  extremely  interesting  papers  on  Berlin,  which  he 
contributed  to  the  BiUiotheque  Universelle  in  1848, 
apparently  just  before  he  left  Germany.  Here  for  the 
first  time  we  have  the  Amiel  of  the  "Journal  Intime." 
The  young  man  who  five  years  before  had  written  his  pains- 
taking review  of  M.  Rio  is  now  in  his  turn  a  master.  He 
speaks  with  dignity  and  authority,  he  has  a  graphic,  vigor- 
ous prose  at  command,  the  form  of  expression  is  condensed 
and  epigrammatic,  and  there  is  a  mixture  of  enthusiasm 
and  criticism  in  his  description  of  the  powerful  intellectual 
machine  then  working  in  the  Prussian  capital  which  repre- 
sents a  permanent  note  of  character,  a  lasting  attitude  of 
mind.  A  great  deal,  of  course,  in  the  two  papers  is  tech- 
nical and  statistic,  but  what  there  is  of  general  comment 
and  criticism  is  so  good  that  one  is  tempted  to  make  some 
melancholy  comparisons  between  them  and  another  article 
in  the  BiUiotheque^  that  on  Adolphe  Pictet,  written  in 
1856,  and  from  which  we  have  already  quoted.  In  1848 
Amiel  was  for  awhile  master  of  his  powers  and  his  knowl- 
edge; no  fatal  divorce  had  yet  taken  place  in  him  between 
the  accumulating  and  producing  faculties ;  he  writes  readily 


INTRODUCTION.  xxiii 

even  for  the  pnblic,  without  labor,  without  affectations. 
Eight  years  later  the  reflective  faculty  has  outgrown  his 
control;  composition,  which  represents  the  practical  side 
of  the  intellectual  life,  has  become  difficult  and  painful 
to  him,  and  he  has  developed  what  he  himself  calls  "a 
wavering  manner,  born  of  doubt  and  scruple," 

How  few  could  have  foreseen  the  failure  in  public  and 
practical  life  which  lay  before  him  at  the  moment  of  his 
reappearance  at  Geneva  in  1848 !  "  My  first  meeting  with 
him  in  1849  is  still  vividly  present  to  me,"  says  M.  Scherer. 
"  He  was  twenty-eight,  and  he  had  just  come  from  Ger- 
many laden  with  science,  but  he  wore  his  knowledge  lightly, 
his  looks  were  attractive,  his  conversation  animated,  and 
no  affectation  spoiled  the  favorable  impression  he  made  on 
the  bystander — the  whole  effect,  indeed,  was  of  something 
brilliant  and  striking.  In  his  young  alertness  Amiel  seemed 
to  be  entering  upon  life  as  a  conqueror;  one  would  have 
said  the  future  was  all  his  own." 

His  return,  moreover,  was  marked  by  a  success  which 
seemed  to  secure  him  at  once  an  important  position  in 
his  native  town.  After  a  public  competition  he  was 
appointed,  in  1849,  professor  of  aesthetics  and  French 
literature  at  the  Academy  of  Geneva,  a  post  which  he  held 
for  four  years,  exchanging  it  for  the  professorship  of 
moral  philosophy  in  1854.  Thus  at  twenty-eight,  without 
any  struggle  to  succeed,  he  had  gained,  it  would  have 
seemed,  that  safe  foothold  in  life  which  should  be  all  the 
philosopher  or  the  critic  wants  to  secure  the  full  and  fruit- 
ful development  of  his  gifts.  Unfortunately  the  appoint- 
ment, instead  of  the  foundation  and  support,  was  to  be  the 
stumbling  block  of  his  career.  Geneva  at  the  time  was  in 
a  state  of  social  and  political  ferment.  After  a  long 
struggle,  beginning  with  the  revolutionary  outbreak  of 
November,  1841,  the  Radical  party,  led  by  James  Fazy, 
had  succeeded  in  ousting  the  Conservatives — that  is  to  say, 
the  governing  class,  which  had  ruled  the  republic  since 
the  Kestoration — from  power.  And  with  the  advent  of 
the  democratic  constitution  of  1846,  and  the  exclusion  of 


Xxi  V  INTROD  UC'l  lON. 

the  old  Genevese  families  from  the  administration  they 
had  so  long  monopolized,  a  number  of  subsidiary  changes 
were  effected,  not  less  important  to  the  ultimate  success 
of  Radicalism  than  the  change  in  political  machinery  intro- 
duced by  the  new  constitution.  Among  them  was  the 
disappearance  of  almost  the  whole  existing  staff  of  the 
academy,  then  and  now  the  center  of  Genevese  education, 
and  up  to  1847  the  stronghold  of  the  moderate  ideas  of 
1814,  followed  by  the  appointment  of  new  men  less  likely 
to  hamper  the  Radical  order  of  things. 

Of  these  new  men  Amiel  was  one.  He  had  been  absent 
from  Geneva  during  the  years  of  conflict  which  had  pre- 
ceded Fazy's  triumph;  he  seems  to  have  had  no  family  or 
party  connections  with  the  leaders  of  the  defeated  side,  and 
as  M.  Scherer  points  out,  he  could  accept  a  non-political 
post  at  the  hands  of  the  new  government,  two  years  after 
the  violent  measures  which  had  marked  its  accession, 
without  breaking  any  pledges  or  sacrificing  any  convictions. 
But  none  the  less  the  step  was  a  fatal  one.  M.  Renan  is 
so  far  in  the  right.  If  any  timely  friend  had  at  that 
moment  succeeded  in  tempting  Amiel  to  Paris,  as  Guizot 
tempted  Rossi  in  1833,  there  can  be  little  question  that  the 
young  professor's  after  life  would  have  been  happier  and 
saner.  As  it  was,  Amiel  threw  himself  into  the  competi- 
tion for  the  chair,  was  appointed  professor,  and  then  found 
himself  in  a  hopelessly  false  position,  placed  on  the- 
threshold  of  life,  in  relations  and  surroundings  for  which  he 
was  radically  unfitted,  and  cut  off  by  no  fault  of  his  own 
from  the  milieu  to  which  he  rightly  belonged,  and  in 
which  his  sensitive  individuality  might  have  expanded  nor- 
mally and  freely.  For  the  defeated  upper  class  very 
naturally  shut  their  doors  on  the  nominees  of  the  new 
regime,  and  as  this  class  represented  at  that  moment 
almost  everything  that  was  intellectually  distinguished  in 
Geneva,  as  it  was  the  guardian,  broadly  speaking,  of  the 
scientific  and  literary  traditions  of  the  little  state,  we- 
can  easily  imagine  how  galling  such  a  social  ostracism  must 
have  been  to  the  young  professor,  accustomed  toth«  stimu- 


INTRODUGTION.  XX  v 

lating  atmosphere,  the  common  intellectual  interests  of 
Berlin,  and  tormented  with  perhaps  more  than  the  ordi- 
nary craving  of  youth  for  sympathy  and  for  affection.  In  a 
great  city,  containing  within  it  a  number  of  different 
circles  of  life,  Amiel  would  easily  have  found  his  own 
circle,  nor  could  political  discords  have  affected  his  social 
comfort  to  anything  like  the  same  extent.  But  in  a  town 
not  much  larger  than  Oxford,  and  in  which  the  cultured 
class  had  hitherto  formed  a  more  or  less  homogeneous  and 
united  whole,  it  was  almost  impossible  for  Amiel  to  escape 
from  his  grievance  and  establish  a  sufficient  barrier  of 
friendly  interests  between  himself  and  the  society  which 
ignored  him.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  suffered, 
both  in  mind  and  character,  from  the  struggle  the  position 
involved.  He  had  no  natural  sympathy  with  radicalism. 
^is  taste,  which  was  extremely  fastidious,  his  judgment, 
his  passionate  respect  for  truth,  were  all  offended  by  the 
noise,  the  narrowness,  the  dogmatism  of  the  triumphant 
democracy.  So  that  there  was  no  making  up  on  the  one 
side  for  what  he  had  lost  on  the  other,  and  he  proudly 
resigned  himself  to  an  isolation  and  a  reserve  which, 
reinforcing,  as  they  did,  certain  native  weaknesses  of  char- 
acter, had  the  most  unfortunate  effect  upon  his  life. 

In  a  passage  of  the  Journal  written  nearly  thirty  years 
after  his  election  he  allows  himself  a  few  pathetic  words, 
half  of  accusation,  half  of  self-reproach,  which  make  us 
roalize  how  deeply  this  untowardness  of  social  circumstance 
had  affected  him.  He  is  discussing  one  of  Madame  de 
Stael's  favorite  words,  the  word  consideration.  "  What  is 
consideration?"  he  asks.  "How  does  a  man  obtain  it? 
how  does  it  differ  from  fame,  esteem,  admiration?"  And 
then  he  turns  upon  himself.  "It  is  curious,  but  the 
idea  of  consideration  has  been  to  me  so  little  of  a  motivt 
that  I  have  not  even  been  conscious  of  such  an  idea.  But 
ought  I  not  to  have  been  conscious  of  it?  "  he  asks  himself 
anxiously — "ought  I  not  to  have  been  more  careful  to  win 
the  good  opinion  of  others,  more  determined  to  conquer 
their  hostility  or  indifference?     It  would  have  been  a  joy 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

to  me  to  be  smiled  upon,  loved,  encouraged,  welcomedi 
and  to  obtain  what  I  was  so  ready  to  give,  kindness  and 
goodwill.  But  to  hunt  down  consideration  and  reputation 
— to  force  the  esteem  of  others — seemed  to  me  an  effort 
unworthy  of  myself,  almost  a  degradation.  A  struggle 
with  unfavorable  opinion  has  seemed  to  me  beneath  me, 
for  all  the  while  my  heart  has  been  full  of  sadness  and 
disappointment,  and  I  have  known  and  felt  that  I  have 
been  systematically  and  deliberately  isolated.  Untimely 
despair  and  the  deepest  discouragement  have  been  my 
constant  portion.  Incapable  of  taking  any  interest  in  my 
talents  for  their  own  sake,  I  let  everything  slip  as  soon  as 
the  hope  of  being  loved  for  them  and  by  them  had  forsaken 
me.  A  hermit  against  my  will,  I  have  not  even  found 
peace  in  solitude,  because  my  inmost  conscience  has  not 
been  any  better  satisfied  than  my  heart." 

Still  one  may  no  doubt  easily  exaggerate  this  loneliness 
of  Amiel's.  His  social  difficulties  represent  rather  a  dull 
discomfort  in  his  life,  which  in  course  of  time,  and  in 
combination  with  a  good  many  other  causes,  produced 
certain  unfavorable  results  on  his  temperament  and  on  his 
public  career,  than  anything  very  tragic  and  acute.  They 
were  real,  and  he,  being  what  he  was,  was  specially  unfitted 
to  cope  with  and  conquer  them.  But  he  had  his  friends, 
his  pleasures,  and  even  to  some  extent  his  successes,  like 
other  men.  "He  had  an  elasticity  of  mind,"  says  M. 
Scherer,  speaking  of  him  as  he  knew  him  in  youth,  "  which 
reacted  against  vexations  from  without,  and  his  cheerful- 
ness was  readily  restored  by  conversation  and  the  society 
of  a  few  kindred  spirits.  We  were  accustomed,  two  or 
three  friends  and  I,  to  walk  every  Thursday  to  the  Saleve, 
Lamartine's  Saleve  aux  flancs  azures;  we  dined  there,  and 
did  not  return  till  nightfall."  They  were  days  devoted  to 
debauches  platoniciennes,  to  "  the  free  exchange  of  ideas, 
the  free  play  of  fancy  and  of  gayety.  Amiel  was  not  one 
of  the  original  members  of  these  Thursday  parties;  but 
whenever  he  joined  us  we  regarded  it  as  a  fete-day.  In 
serious  discussion  he  was  a  master  of  the  unexpected,  and 


INTROD  UCTION.  xx  v  ii 

his  energy,  his  entrain^  affected  us  all.  If  his  grammatical 
questions,  his  discussions  of  rhymes  and  synonyms,  aston- 
ished us  at  times,  how  often,  on  the  other  hand,  did  he  not 
give  us  cause  to  admire  the  variety  of  his  knowledge,  the 
precision  of  his  ideas,  the  charm  of  his  quick  intelligence ! 
We  found  him  always,  besides,  kindly  and  amiable,  a  nature 
one  might  trust  and  lean  upon  with  perfect  security.  He 
awakened  in  us  but  one  regret;  we  could  not  understand 
how  it  was  a  man  so  richly  gifted  produced  nothing,  or 
only  trivialities." 

In  these  last  words  of  M.  Scherer's  we  have  come  across 
the  determining  fact  of  Amiel's  life  in  its  relation  to  the 
outer  world — that  "sterility  of  genius,"  of  which  he  was 
the  victim.  For  social  ostracism  and  political  anxiety 
would  have  mattered  to  him  comparatively  little  if  he  could 
but  have  lost  himself  in  the  fruitful  activities  of  thought, 
in  the  struggles  and  the  victories  of  composition  and  crea- 
tion. A  German  professor  of  Amiel's  knowledge  would 
have  wanted  nothing  beyond  his  Fach,  and  nine  men  out 
of  ten  in  his  circumstances  would  have  made  themselves 
the  slave  of  a  magnum  opus,  and  forgotten  the  vexations 
of  everyday  life  in  the  "douces  joies  de  la  science."  But 
there  were  certain  characteristics  in  Amiel  which  made  it 
impossible — which  neutralized  his  powers,  his  knowledge, 
his  intelligence,  and  condemned  him,  so  far  as  his  public 
performance  was  concerned,  to  barrenness  and  failure. 
What  were  these  characteristics,  this  element  of  unsound- 
ness and  disease,  which  M.  Caro  calls  "la  maladie  de 
Videal?  " 

Before  we  can  answer  the  question  we  must  go  back  a 
little  and  try  to  realize  the  intellectual  and  moral  equip- 
ment of  the  young  man  of  twenty-eight,  who  seemed  to  M. 
Scherer  to  have  the  world  at  his  feet.  What  were  the 
chief  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  which  Amiel  brought 
back  with  him  from  Berlin?  In  the  first  place,  an 
omnivorous  desire  to  know:  "Amiel,"  says  M.  Scherer, 
"read  everything."  In  the  second,  an  extraordinary  power 
of  sustained  and  concentrated  thought,  and  a  passionate, 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

almost  a  religious,  delight  in  the  exercise  of  his  power. 
Knowledge,  science,  stirred  in  him  no  mere  sense  of 
curiosity  or  cold  critical  instinct — "  he  came  to  his  desk  as 
to  an  altar."  "A  friend  who  knew  him  well,"  says  M. 
Scherer,  "  remembers  having  heard  him  speak  with  deep 
emotion  of  that  lofty  serenity  of  mood  which  he  had  ex- 
perienced during  his  years  in  Germany  whenever,  in  the 
early  morning  before  dawn,  with  his  reading-lamp  beside 
him,  he  had  found  himself  penetrating  once  more  into  the 
region  of  pure  thought,  'conversing  with  ideas,  enjoying 
the  inmost  life  of  things,'"  "Thought,"  he  says  some- 
where in  the  Journal,  "  is  like  opium.  It  can  intoxicate  us 
and  yet  leave  us  broad  awake."  To  this  intoxication  of 
thought  he  seems  to  have  been  altvays  specially  liable,  and 
his  German  experience — unbalanced,  as  such  an  experience 
generally  is  with  a  young  man,  by  family  life,  or  by  any 
healthy  commonplace  interests  and  pleasures — developed 
the  intellectual  passion  in  him  to  an  abnormal  degree. 
For  four  years  he  had  devoted  himself  to  the  alternate  ex- 
citement and  satisfaction  of  this  passion.  He  had  read 
enormously,  thought  enormously,  and  in  the  absence  of 
any  imperative  claim  on  the  practical  side  of  him,  the 
accumulative,  reflective  faculties  had  grown  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  rest  of  the  personality.  Nor  had  any  special 
subject  the  power  to  fix  him.  Had  he  been  in  France, 
what  Sainte-Beuve  calls  the  French  "imagination  de 
detail "  would  probably  have  attracted  his  pliant,  respon- 
sive nature,  and  he  would  have  found  happy  occupation  in 
some  one  of  the  innumerable  departments  of  research  on 
which  the  French  have  been  patiently  spending  their 
analytical  gift  since  that  general  widening  of  horizons 
which  accompanied  and  gave  value  to  the  Romantic  move- 
ment. But  instead  he  was  at  Berlin,  in  the  center  of  that 
speculative  ferment  which  followed  the  death  of  Hegel  and 
the  break-up  of  the  Hegelian  idea  into  a  number  of  differ- 
ent and  conflicting  sections  of  philosophical  opinion.  He 
was  under  the  spell  of  German  synthesis,  of  that  tradi- 
tional, involuntary  effort  which  the  German  mind  makes, 


INTRODUCTION.  xxix 

generation  after  generation,  to  find  the  unity  of  experience, 
to  range  its  accumulations  from  life  and  thought  under  a 
more  and  more  perfect,  a  more  and  more  exhaustive, 
formula.  Not  this  study  or  that  study,  not  this  detail  or 
that,  but  the  whole  of  things,  the  sum  of  Knowledge,  the 
Infinite,  the  Absolute,  alone  had  value  or  reality.  In  his 
own  words :  "  There  is  no  repose  for  the  mind  except  in  the 
absolute;  for  feeling  except  in  the  infinite;  for  the  soul 
except  in  the  divine.  Nothing  finite  is  true,  is  interesting, 
is  worthy  to  fix  my  attention.  All  that  is  particular  is  ex- 
clusive, and  all  that  is  exclusive  repels  me.  There  is 
nothing  non-exclusive  but  the  All;  my  end  is  communion 
with  Being  through  the  whole  of  Being." 

It  was  not,  indeed,  that  he  neglected  the  study  of  detail; 
he  had  a  strong  natural  aptitude  for  it,  and  his  knowledge 
was  wide  and  real ;  but  detail  was  ultimately  valuable  to 
him,  not  in  itself,  but  as  food  for  a  speculative  hunger,  for 
which,  after  all,  there  is  no  real  satisfaction.  All  the 
pleasant  paths  which  traverse  the  kingdom  of  Knowledge, 
in  which  so  many  of  us  find  shelter  and  life-long  means  of 
happiness,  led  Amiel  straight  into  the  wilderness  of  ab- 
stract speculation.  And  the  longer  he  lingered  in  the 
wilderness,  unchecked  by  any  sense  of  intellectual  respon- 
sibility, and  far  from  the  sounds  of  human  life,  the 
stranger  and  the  weirder  grew  the  hallucinations  of 
thought.  The  Journal  gives  marvelous  expression  to 
them:  "I  can  find  no  words  for  what  I  feel.  My  con- 
sciousness is  withdrawn  into  itself;  I  hear  my  heart  beat- 
ing, and  my  life  passing.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  have  be- 
come a  statue  on  the  banks  of  the  river  of  time,  that  I  am 
the  spectator  of  some  mystery,  and  shall  issue  from  it  old, 
or  no  longer  capable  of  age."  Or  again:  "lam  a  spec- 
tator, so  to  speak,  of  the  molecular  whirlwind  which  men 
call  individual  life;  I  am  conscious  of  an  incessant  meta- 
morphosis, an  irresistible  movement  of  existence,  which  is 
going  on  within  me — and  this  phenomenology  of  myself 
serves  as  a  window  opened  upon  the  mystery  of  the  world. 
I  am,  or  rather  my  sensible  consciousness  is,  concentrated 


XXX  INTRODUCTION. 

upon  this  ideal  standing-point,  this  invisible  threshold, 
as  it  were,  whence  one  hears  the  impetuous  passage  of 
time,  rushing  and  foaming  as  it  flows  out  into  the  change- 
less ocean  of  eternity.  After  all  the  bewildering  distrac- 
tions of  life — after  having  drowned  myself  in  a  multiplicity 
of  trifles  and  in  the  caprices  of  this  fugitive  existence,  yet 
without  ever  attaining  to  self-intoxication  or  self-delusion 
— I  come  again  upon  the  fathomless  abyss,  the  silent 
and  melancholy  cavern,  where  dwell  '  Die  Mutter ^^  where 
sleeps  that  which  neither  lives  nor  dies,  which  has  neither 
movement  nor  change,  nor  extension,  nor  form,  and  which 
lasts  when  all  else  passes  away." 

Wonderful  sentences!  ^' Prodiges  de  lapensee  specula- 
tive, decrits  dansune  langue  non  moins  prodigieuse,'^  as 
M.  Scherer  says  of  the  innumerable  passages  which  describe 
either  this  intoxication  of  the  infinite,  or  the  various 
forms  and  consequences  of  that  deadening  of  personality 
which  the  abstract  processes  of  thought  tend  to  produce. 
But  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  a  man  in  whom  experi- 
ences of  this  kind  become  habitual  is  likely  to  lose  his  hold 
upon  the  normal  interests  of  life.  What  are  politics  or 
literature  to  such  a  mind  but  fragments  without  real  im- 
portance— dwarfed  reflections  of  ideal  truths  for  which 
neither  language  nor  institutions  provide  any  adequate  ex- 
pression !  How  is  it  possible  to  take  seriously  what  is  so 
manifestly  relative  and  temporary  as  the  various  existing 
forms  of  human  activity?  Above  all,  how  is  it  possible  to 
take  one's  self  seriously,  to  spend  one's  thought  on  the 
petty  interests  of  a  petty  individuality,  when  the  beatific 
vision  of  universal  knowledge,  of  absolute  being,  has  once 
dawned  on  the  dazzled  beholder?  The  charm  and  the 
savor  of  everything  relative  and  phenomenal  is  gone.  A 
man  may  go  on  talking,  teaching,  writing — but  the  spring 
of  personal  action  is  broken;  his  actions  are  like  the 
actions  of  a  somnambulist. 

No  doubt  to  some  extent  this  mood  is  familiar  to  all 
minds  endowed  with  the  true  speculative  genius.  The 
philosopher  has  always  tended  to  become  unfit  for  practical 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxi 

life;  his  unfitness,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  comic  motives,  so 
to  speak,  of  literature.  But  a  mood  which,  in  the  great 
maj'n-ity  of  thinkers,  is  intermittent,  and  is  easily  kept 
within  bounds  by  the  practical  needs,  the  mere  physical 
instincts  of  life,  was  in  Amiel  almost  constant,  and  the 
natural  impulse  of  the  human  animal  toward  healthy  move- 
ment and  a  normal  play  of  function,  never  very  strong  in 
him,  was  gradually  weakened  and  destroyed  by  an 
untoward  combination  of  circumstances.  The  low  health 
from  which  he  sutfered  more  or  less  from  his  boyhood,  and 
then  the  depressing  influences  of  the  social  difficulties  we 
have  described,  made  it  more  and  more  difficult  for  the 
rest  of  the  organism  to  react  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
brain.  And  as  the  normal  human  motives  lost  their  force, 
wliat  he  calls  "  the  Buddhist  tendency  in  me "  gathered 
strength  year  by  year,  until,  like  some  strange  misgrowth, 
it  had  absorbed  the  whole  energies  and  drained  the  inner- 
most life-blood  of  the  personality  which  had  developed  it. 
And  the  result  is  another  soul's  tragedy,  another  story  of 
conflict  and  failure,  which  throws  fresh  light  on  the  mys- 
terious capacities  of  human  nature,  and  warns  us,  as  the 
letters  of  Obermann  in  their  day  warned  the  generation  of 
George  Sand,  that  with  the  rise  of  new  intellectual  percep- 
tions new  spiritual  dangers  come  into  being,  and  that 
across  the  path  of  continuous  evolution  which  the  modern 
mind  is  traversing  there  lies  many  a  selva  oscura,  many  a 
lonely  and  desolate  tract,  in  which  loss  and  pain  await  it. 
The  story  of  the  "  Journal  Intime  "  is  a  story  to  make  us 
think,  to  make  us  anxious;  but  at  the  same  time,  in  the 
case  of  a  nature  like  Amiel's,  there  is  so  much  high  poetry 
thrown  oif  from  the  long  process  of  conflict,  the  power  of 
vision  and  of  reproduction  which  the  intellect  gains  at  the 
expense  of  the  rest  of  the  personality  is  in  many  respects 
so  real  and  so  splendid,  and  produces  results  so  stirring 
often  to  the  heart  and  imagination  of  the  listener,  that  in 
the  end  we  put  down  the  record  not  so  much  with  a  throb 
of  pity  as  with  an  impulse  of  gratitude.  The  individual 
error  and  suffering  is  almost  forgotten;   all  that  we  can 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION. 

realize  is  the  enrichment  of  human  feeling,  the  quickened 
sense  of  spiritual  reality  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  baffled 
and  solitary  thinker  whose  via  dolorosa  is  before  us. 

The  manner  in  which  this  intellectual  idiosyncrasy  we 
have  been  describing  gradually  affected  Amiel's  life  supplies 
abundant  proof  of  its  actuality  and  sincerity.  It  is  a 
pitiful  story.  Amiel  might  have  been  saved  from  despair 
by  love  and  marriage,  by  paternity,  by  strenuous  and  suc- 
cessful literary  production;  and  this  mental  habit  of  his — 
this  tyranny  of  ideal  conceptions,  helped  by  the  natural 
accompaniment  of  such  a  tyranny,  a  critical  sense  of 
abnormal  acuteness — stood  between  him  and  everything 
healing  and  restoring.  "I  am  afraid  of  an  imperfect,  a 
faulty  synthesis,  and  I  linger  in  the  provisional,  from 
timidity  and  from  loyalty."  "As  soon  as  a  thing  attracts 
me  I  turn  away  from  it;  or  rather,  I  cannot  either  be  con- 
tent with  the  second-best,  or  discover  anything  which  satis- 
fies my  aspiration.  The  real  disgusts  me,  and  I  cannot 
find  the  ideal."  And  so  one  thing  after  another  is  put 
away.  Family  life  attracted  him  perpetually.  "I  cannot 
escape,"  he  writes,  "from  the  ideal  of  it.  A  companion 
of  my  life,  of  my  work,  of  my  thoughts,  of  my  hopes; 
within  a  common  worship — toward  the  world  outside  kind- 
ness and  beneficence;  education  to  undertake;  the  thous- 
and and  one  moral  relations  which  develop  round  the  first 
— all  these  ideas  intoxicate  me  sometimes."  But  in  vain. 
"Reality,  the  present,  the  irreparable,  the  necessary, 
repel  and  even  terrify  me.  I  have  too  much  imagination, 
conscience,  and  penetration  and  not  enough  character. 
Jhe  life  of  thought  alone  seems  to  me  to  have  enough  elas- 
ticity and  immensity,  to  he  free  enough  from  the  irrepar- 
able; practical  life  makes  me  afraid.  I  am  distrustful  of 
myself  and  of  happiness  because  I  know  myself.  The 
ideal  poisons  for  me  all  imperfect  possession.  And  I 
abhor  useless  regrets  and  repentance." 

It  is  the  same,  at  bottom,  with  his  professional  work. 
He  protects  the  intellectual  freedom,  as  it  were,  of  his 
students  with  the  same  jealousy  as  he  protects  his  own. 


INTROD  UCTION.  xxxiii 

There  shall  be  no  oratorical  device,  no  persuading,  no 
cajoling  of  the  mind  this  way  or  that.  "A  professor  is  the 
priest  of  his  subject,  and  should  do  the  honors  of  it  gravely 
and  with  dignity."  And  so  the  man  who  in  his  private 
Journal  is  master  of  an  eloquence  and  a  poetry,  capable  of 
illuminating  the  most  difficult  and  abstract  of  subjects, 
becomes  in  the  lecture-room  a  dry  compendium  of  universal 
knowledge.  "Led  by  his  passion  for  the  wnole,"  says  M. 
Scherer,  "  Amiel  offered  his  hearers,  not  so  much  a  series 
of  positive  teachings,  as  an  index  of  subjects,  a  framework 
— what  the  Germans  call  a  Scheniatisvius.  The  skeleton 
was  admirably  put  together,  and  excellent  of  its  kind,  and 
lent  itself  admirably  to  a  certain  kind  of  analysis  and 
demonstration;  but  it  was  a  skeleton — flesh,  body,  and 
life  were  wanting." 

So  that  as  a  professor  he  made  no  mark.  He  was  con- 
scientiousness itself  in  whatever  he  conceived  to  be  his 
duty.  But  with  all  the  critical  and  philosophical  power 
which,  as  we  know  from  the  Journal,  he  might  have 
lavished  on  , his  teaching,  had  the  conditions  been  other 
th^^;  :the){  i>y,^r^,  t;^i^.  st;|dy  of  literature,  and  the  study  of 
philosopJ^y;assuch,rjOwe  himjiothipg.  But  for  the  Journal 
Ijis.y^fj^.of  7trainingj;^i(^.  }^i&,years  of.^eaching  would  have 
IjeJEt., equally, ;,lit^le,,r§Qord.  bieh,^pd,,,th§^.  -,j'| Hi^,,pjapjl(^,,^t 
Qei^ya,"  wri^tqspnf!  wlxo.,was.,himself  ,^rpong,  tl^e  number,* 
"p,ev ex.  learned  ^p,:appr(^ciatp  h,\mj^\,  hJ^,.^r,vi&,vyoi-th.,  .^ye 
<^i4jj4ps,t>JGe_j?49..doubt;  tOj.a  Jji^o^^fjedgei  as.y.^riq^ja^^it  \y^s 
Tfji^e,  it;9;)j;k,;\^st^tgTes  o^  re;^,(^i^g,,^o  tl^ai  cqsH\ppcjli|i^is?pp 
(^  theibj^stkind>j^hic]ijb,e,.had  Ipf ou^ti i^aok  .yfith.himjfrQflli 
]ij|s,,Ttr^Y^ls;  wp,,likqd  hjjn  f9f,,ji^;,in^u]gence,jj;)ifs.jk^dJy 
\y.ijt^  jjjjiit,  Ijicw)k.^J)^k  wit^pv^^aij^i^^e^j^^-pf  pjj^asjf^rpji^il^is 

l^fi^iVjV^Sfooii    y£».    3t£n      '/:nii:)f!l!j    iiili  c^ioli;    U    mtK:  n*i;,':inl 

anf^^jrigif^,Pjf.,f^mjiiy  Ijifpvfin^  h3^,f9[upfi;hifmsj^|,,ip«;apa^e 
pf  teaching,  effeGtjvelywhath^knpW]?,  aJad,|las,.yet^redl^^n^^*li 
all  pthei;  iijicapaei  t\e§  iivtl>^  4^1<A  p£  ^^^M'S  B^  94ftQ^ip^ir ;  tA"^ 

'U*JMt<A1^bdhse!«}«'i6?;'fi<^Pii6ffes*br'6fifote]^iMttoniff-m  the 

University  of  Brussels.  .ljr(i>v   mi::  70:   .o^jiseafjir 


xxxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

here  indeed  we  come  to  the  strangest  feature  in  Amiel's 
career — his  literary  sterility.  That  he  possessed  literary 
power  of  the  highest  order  is  abundantly  proved  by  the 
"Journal  Intime."  Knowledge,  insight,  eloquence,  critical 
power — all  were  his.  And  the  impulse  to  produce,  which 
is  the  natural,  though  by  no  means  the  invariable,  accom- 
paniment of  the  literary  gift,  must  have  been  fairly  strong 
in  him  also.  For  the  "Journal  Intime"  runs  to  17,000 
folio  pages  of  MS.,  and  his  half  dozen  volumes  of  poems, 
though  the  actual  quantity  is  not  large,  represent  an 
amount  of  labor  which  would  have  more  than  carried  him 
through  some  serious  piece  of  critical  or  philosophical 
work,  and  so  enabled  him  to  content  the  just  expectations 
of  his  world.  He  began  to  write  early,  as  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  at  twenty  he  was  a  contributor  to  the  best  literary 
periodical  which  Geneva  possessed.  He  was  a  charming 
correspondent,  and  in  spite  of  his  passion  for  abstract 
thought,  his  intellectual  interest,  at  any  rate,  in  all  the 
activities  of  the  day — politics,  religious  organizations,  liter- 
ature, art — was  of  the  keenest  kind.  And  yet  at  the  time 
of  his  death  all  that  this  fine  critic  and  profound  thinker 
had  given  to  the  world,  after  a  life  entirely  spent  in  the 
pursuit  of  letters,  was,  in  the  first  place,  a  few  volumes  of 
poems  which  had  had  no  effect  except  on  a  small  number 
of  sympathetic  friends;  a  few  pages  of  pe?7sees  intermin- 
gled with  the  poems,  and,  as  we  now  know,  extracted  from 
the  Journal;  and  four  or  five  scattered  essays,  the  length 
of  magazine  articles,  on  Mme.  de  Stael,  Rousseau,  the 
history  of  the  Academy  of  Geneva,  the  literature  of 
French-speaking  Switzerland,  and  so  on!  And  more 
than  this,  the  production,  such  as  it  was,  had  been  a  pro- 
duction born  of  effort  and  difficulty;  and  the  labor  squan- 
dered on  poetical  forms,  on  metrical  experiments  and  intri- 
cate problems  of  translation,  as  well  as  the  occasional  affec- 
tations of  the  prose  style,  might  well  have  convinced  the 
critical  bystander  that  the  mind  of  which  these  things  were 
the  offspring  could  have  no  real  importance,  no  profitable 
message,  for  the  world. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxv 

The  whole  "Journal  In  time  "  is  in  some  sense  Amiel's 
explanation  of  these  facts.  In  it  he  has  made  full  and 
bitter  confession  of  his  weakness,  his  failure;  he  has 
endeavored,  with  an  acuteness  of  analysis  no  other  hand 
can  rival,  to  make  the  reasons  of  his  failure  and  isolation 
clear  both  to  himself  and  others.  "  To  love,  to  dream,  to 
feel,  to  learn,  to  understand — all  these  are  possible  to  me  if 
only  I  may  be  dispensed  from  willing — I  have  a  sort  of 
primitive  horror  of  ambition,  of  struggle,  of  hatred,  of  all 
which  dissipates  the  soul  and  makes  it  dependent  on  ex- 
ternal things  and  aims.  The  joy  of  becoming  once  more 
conscious  of  myself,  of  listening  to  the  passage  of  time 
and  the  flow  of  the  universal  life,  is  sometimes  enough  to 
make  me  forget  every  desire  and  to  quench  in  me  both  the 
wish  to  produce  and  the  power  to  execute."  It  is  the 
result  of  what  he  himself  calls  "Z'  eUouissement  de  Vinfini." 
He  no  sooner  makes  a  step  toward  production,  toward 
action  and  the  realization  of  himself,  than  a  vague  sense  of 
peril  overtakes  him.  The  inner  life,  with  its  boundless 
horizons  and  its  indescribable  exaltations,  seems  endan- 
gered. Is  he  not  about  to  place  between  himself  and  the 
forms  of  speculative  truth  some  barrier  of  sense  and  matter 
— to  give  up  the  real  for  the  apparent,  the  substance  for 
the  shadow?  One  is  reminded  of  Clough's  cry  under  a 
somewhat  similar  experience: 

*'  If  tliis  pure  solace  should  desert  my  mind. 
What  were  all  else  ?    I  dare  not  risk  the  loss. 
To  the  old  paths,  my  soul !  " 

And  in  close  combination  with  the  speculative  sense, 
with  the  tendency  which  carries  a  man  toward  the  contem^ 
plative  study  of  life  and  nature  as  a  whole,  is  the  critical 
sense — the  tendency  which,  in  the  realm  of  action  and  con- 
crete performance,  carries  him,  as  A-miel  expresses  it, 
^^  droit  au  defaut,''^  and  makes  him  conscious  at  once  of 
the  weak  point,  the  germ  of  failure  in  a  project  or  an 
action.  It  is  another  aspect  of  the  same  idiosyncrasy.  "  The 
point  I  have  reached  seems  to  be  explained  by  a  too  rest- 


xxxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

less  search  for  perfection,  by  the  abuse  of  the  cnticai 
faculty,  and  by  an  unreasonable  distrust  of  first  impulses, 
first  thoughts,  first  words.  Confidence  and  spontaneity 
of  life  are  drifting  out  of  my  reach,  and  this  is  why  I  can 
no  longer  act."  For  abuse  of  the  critical  faculty  brings 
with  it  its  natural  consequences — timidity  of  soul,  paralysis 
of  the  will,  complete  self -distrust.  "  To  know  is  enough 
for  me;  expression  seems  to  me  often  a  profanity.  What 
I  lack  is  character,  will,  individuality."  "By  what  mys- 
tery," he  writes  to  M.  Soberer,  "  do  others  expect  much 
from  me?  whereas  I  feel  myself  to  be  incapable  of  any- 
thing serious  or  important."  Defiance  and  impuissance  are 
the  words  constantly  on  his  lips.  "  My  friends  see  what  I 
might  have  been;  I  see  what  I  am." 

And  yet  the  literary  instinct  remains,  and  must  in  some 
■way  be  satisfied.  And  so  he  takes  refuge  in  what  he  him- 
self calls  scales,  exercises,  tours  de  force  in  verse-transla- 
tion of  the  most  laborious  and  difficult  kind,  in  ingenious 
vers  cVoccasion,  in  metrical  experiments  and  other  literary 
trifiing,  as  his  friends  think  it,  of  the  same  sort.  "  I  am 
afraid  of  greatness.  I  am  not  afraid  of  ingenuity ;  all  my 
published  literary  essays  are  little  else  than  studies,  games, 
■exercises,  for  the  purpose  of  testing  myself.  I  play  scales, 
as  it  were ;  I  run  up  and  down  my  instrument.  I  train  my 
hand  and  make  sure  of  its  capacity  and  skill.  But  the 
work  itself  remains  unachieved.  I  am  always  preparing 
and  never  accomplishing,  and  my  energy  is  swallowed  up 
in  a  kind  of  barren  curiosity." 

Not  that  he  surrenders  himself  to  the  nature  which  is 
stronger  than  he  all  at  once.  His  sense  of  duty  rebels,  his 
conscience  suffers,  and  he  makes  resolution  after  resolution 
to  shake  himself  free  from  the  mental  tradition  which  had 
taken  such  hold  upon  him — to  write,  to  produce,  to  satisfy 
his  friends.  In  1861,  a  year  after  M.  Scherer  had  left 
Geneva,  Amiel  wrote  to  him,  describing  his  difficulties  and 
his  discouragements,  and  asking,  as  one  may  ask  an  old 
friend  of  one's  youth,  for  help  and  counsel.  M.  Scherer, 
much   touched    by  the  appeal,  answered  it  plainly  and 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxvii 

frankly — described  the  feeling  of  those  who  knew  him  as 
they  watched  his  life  slipping  away  unmarked  by  any  of 
the  achievements  of  which  his  youth  had  given  promise^ 
and  pointed  out  various  literary  openings  in  which,  if  he 
were  to  put  out  his  powers,  he  could  not  but  succeed.  To 
begin  with,  he  urged  him  to  join  the  Revue  Germanique, 
then  being  started  by  Charles  Dollfus,  Kenan,  Littre,  and 
others.  Amiel  left  the  letter  for  three  months  unanswered 
and  then  wrote  a  reply  which  M.  Soberer  probably  received 
with  a  sigh  of  impatience.  For,  rightly  interpreted,  it 
meant  that  old  habits  were  too  strong,  and  that  the  mo- 
mentary impulse  had  died  away.  When,  a  little  later, 
"Les  Etrangeres,"  a  collection  of  verse-translations,  came 
out,  it  was  dedicated  to  M.  Scherer,  who  did  not,  however, 
pretend  to  give  it  any  very  cordial  reception.  Amiel  took 
his  friend's  coolness  in  very  good  part,  calling  him  his 
"dear  Rhadamanthus."  "How  little  I  knew!"  cries  M. 
Scherer.  "  What  I  regret  is  to  have  discovered  too  late  by 
means  of  the  Journal,  the  key  to  a  problem  which  seemed 
to  me  hardly  serious,  and  which  I  now  feel  to  have  been 
tragic.  A  kind  of  remorse  seizes  me  that  I  was  not  able 
to  understand  my  friend  better,  and  to  soothe  his  suffering 
by  a  sympathy  which  would  have  been  a  mixture  of  pity 
and  admiration." 

Was  it  that  all  the  while  Amiel  felt  himself  sure  of  his 
revanche  that  he  knew  the  value  of  all  those  sheets  of 
Journal  which  were  slowly  accumulating  under  his  hand? 
Did  he  say  to  himself  sometimes:  "My  friends  are  wrong; 
my  gifts  and  my  knowledge  are  not  lost;  I  have  given  ex- 
pression to  them  in  the  only  way  possible  to  me,  and  when 
I  die  it  will  be  found  that  I  too,  like  other  men,  have  per- 
formed the  task  appointed  me,  and  contributed  my  quota 
to  the  human  store?  "  It  is  clear  that  very  early  he  began 
to  regard  it  as  possible  that  portions  of  the  Journal  should 
be  published  after  his  death,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  he  left 
certain  "literary  instructions,"  dated  seven  years  before  his 
last  illness,  in  which  his  executors  were  directed  to  publish 
8uch  parts  of  it  as  might  seem  to  them  to  possess  any  gen- 


txxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

eral  interest.  But  it  is  clear  also  that  the  Journal  was  not, 
in  any  sense,  written  for  publication.  "These  pages,"  say 
the  Geneva  editors,  "  written  au  courant  de  la  plume — 
bometimes  in  the  morning,  but  more  often  at  the  end  of 
the  day,  without  any  idea  of  composition  or  publicity — are 
marked  by  the  repetition,  the  lacunce,  the  carelessness,  inher- 
ent in  this  kind  of  monologue.  The  thoughts  and  senti- 
ments expressed  have  no  other  aim  than  sincerity  of  ren- 
dering." 

And  his  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  record  thus  pro- 
duced was,  in  general,  a  low  one,  especially  during  the 
depression  and  discouragement  of  his  later  years.  "  This 
Journal  of  mine,"  he  writes  in  1876,  "represents  the 
material  of  a  good  many  volumes;  what  prodigious  waste 
of  time,  of  thought,  of  strength!  It  will  be  useful  to 
nobody,  and  even  for  myself — it  has  rather  helped  me  to 
shirk  life  than  to  practice  it. "  And  again:  "  Is  everything 
I  have  produced,  taken  together — my  correspondence, 
these  thousands  of  Journal  pages,  my  lectures,  my  articles, 
my  poems,  my  notes  of  different  kinds — anything  better 
than  withered  leaves?  To  whom  and  to  what  have  I  been 
useful?  Will  my  name  survive  me  a  single  day,  and  will 
it  ever  mean  anything  to  anybody?  A  life  of  no  account! 
When  all  is  added  up — nothing!"  In  passages  like  these 
there  is  no  anticipation  of  any  posthumous  triumph  over 
the  disapproval  of  his  friends  and  the  criticism  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens. The  Journal  was  a  relief,  the  means  of  satis- 
fying a  need  of  expression  which  otherwise  could  find  no 
outlet;  "a  grief-cheating  device,"  but  nothing  more.  It 
did  not  still  the  sense  of  remorse  for  wasted  gifts  and 
opportunities  which  followed  poor  Amiel  through  the 
painful  months  of  his  last  illness.  Like  Keats,  he  passed 
away,  feeling  that  all  was  over,  and  the  great  game  of  life 
lost  forever. 

It  still  remains  for  us  to  gather  up  a  few  facts  and  im- 
pressions of  a  different  kind  from  those  which  we  have 
been  dwelling  on,  which  may  serve  to  complete  and  correct 
the  picture  we  have  so  far  drawn  of  the  author  of  the 


INT  ROD  UCTION.  xxx  i  x 

Journal.  For  Amiel  is  full  of  contradictions  and  surprises, 
which  are  indeed  one  great  source  of  his  attractiveness. 
Had  he  only  been  the  thinker,  the  critic,  the  idealist  we 
have  been  describing,  he  would  never  have  touched  our 
feeling  as  he  now  does;  what  makes  him  so  interesting  is 
that  there  was  in  him  &fond  of  heredity,  a  temperament 
and  disposition,  which  were  perpetually  reacting  against 
the  oppression  of  the  intellect  and  its  accumulations.  In 
his  hours  of  intellectual  concentration  he  freed  himself 
from  all  trammels  of  country  or  society,  or  even,  as  he 
insists,  from  all  sense  of  personality.  But  at  other  times 
he  was  the  dutiful  son  of  a  country  which  he  loved,  taking 
a  warm  interest  in  everything  Genevese,  especially  in 
everything  that  represented  the  older  life  of  the  town. 
When  it  was  a  question  of  separating  the  Genevese  state 
from  the  church,  which  had  been  the  center  of  the  national 
life  during  three  centuries  of  honorable  history,  Amiel  the 
philosopher,  the  cosmopolitan,  threw  himself  ardently  on 
to  the  side  of  the  opponents- of  separation,  and  rejoiced  in 
their  victory.  A  large  proportion  of  his  poems  deal  with 
national  subjects.  He  was  one  of  the  first  members  of 
"  L^Institut  Genevois,"  founded  in  1853,  and  he  took  a 
warm  interest  in  the  movement  started  by  M.  Eugene 
Eambert  toward  1870,  for  the  improvement  of  secondary 
education  throughout  French-speaking  Switzerland.  One 
of  his  friends  dwells  with  emphasis  on  his  "  sens  profond 
des  nat'ionalites,  des  langues,  des  viUes" — on  his  love  for 
local  characteristics,  for  everything  deep-rooted  in  the 
past,  and  helping  to  sustain  the  present.  He  is  convinced 
that  no  state  can  live  and  thrive  without  a  certain  number 
of  national  prejudices,  without  a  priori  beliefs  and  tradi- 
tions. It  pleases  him  to  see  that  there  is  a  force  in  the 
Genevese  nationality  which  resists  the  leveling  influences 
of  a  crude  radicalism;  it  rejoices  him  that  Geneva  "has 
not  yet  become  a  mere  copy  of  anything,  and  that  she  is 
still  capable  of  deciding  for  herself.  Those  who  say  to 
her,  'Do  as  they  do  at  New  York,  at  Paris,  at  Eome,  at 
Berlin,'  are  still  in  the  minoi-ity.     The  doctrinaires  who 


xl  INTRODUCTION. 

would  split  her  up  and  destroy  her  unity  waste  their  breatu 
upon  her.  She  divines  the  snare  laid  for  her,  and  turns 
away.     I  like  this  proof  of  vitality. " 

His  love  of  traveling  never  left  him,  Paris  attracted 
him,  as  it  attracts  all  who  cling  to  letters,  and  he  gained 
at  one  time  or  another  a  certain  amount  of  acquaintance 
with  French  literary  men.  In  1852  we  find  him  for  a 
time  brought  into  contact  with  Thierry,  Lamennais, 
B6ranger,  Mignet,  etc.,  as  well  as  with  Romantics  like 
Alfred  de  Vignyand  Th^ophileGautier.  There  are  poems 
addressed  to  De  Vigny  and  Gautier  in  his  first  published 
volume  of  1854.  He  revisited  Italy  and  his  old  haunts 
and  friends  in  Germany  more  than  once,  and  in  general 
kept  the  current  of  Lis  life  fresh  and  vigorous  by  his  open- 
ness to  impressions  and  additions  from  without. 

He  was,  as  we  have  said,  a  delightful  correspondent, 
"taking  pains  with  the  smallest  note,"  and  within  a  small 
circle  of  friends  much  liked.  His  was  not  a  nature  to  be 
generally  appreciated  at  its  true  value;  the  motives  which 
governed  his  life  were  too  remote  from  the  ordinary  mo- 
tives of  human  conduct,  and  his  characteristics  just  those 
which  have  always  excited  the  distrust,  if  not  the  scorn, 
of  the  more  practical  and  vigorous  order  of  minds.  Prob- 
ably, too — especially  in  his  later  years — there  was  a  certain 
amount  of  self -consciousness  and  artificiality  in  his  attitude 
toward  the  outer  world,  which  was  the  result  partly  of  the 
social  difficulties  we  have  described,  partly  of  his  own 
sense  of  difference  from  his  surroundings,  and  partly  again 
of  that  timidity  of  nature,  that  self-distrust,  which  is 
revealed  to  us  in  the  Journal.  So  that  he  was  by  no 
means  generally  popular,  and  the  great  success  of  the 
Journal  is  still  a  mystery  to  the  majority  of  those  who 
knew  him  merely  as  a  fellow-citizen  and  acquaintance, 
But  his  friends  loved  him  and  believed  in  him,  and  the 
reserved  student,  whose  manners  were  thought  affected  in 
general  society,  could  and  did  make  himself  delightful  to 
those  who  understood  him,  or  those  who  looked  to  him  for 
affection.     "  According  to  my  remembrance  of  him,"  wrHe* 


INTRODUCTION  xk 

M.  Scherer,  "he  was  bright,  sociable,  a  charming  com- 
panion. Others  who  knew  him  better  and  longer  than  I 
say  the  same.  The  mobility  of  his  disposition  counter- 
acted his  tendency  to  exaggerations  of  feeling.  In  spite  of 
his  fits  of  melancholy,  his  natural  turn  of  mind  was; 
cheerful;  up  to  the  end  he  was  young,  a  child  even> 
amused  by;  mere  nothings;  and  whoever  had  heard  him 
lavtgh.his  heaittyisbudent's  laugh  would  have  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  identify!-:hi<m  with  the' author/ of  so  many  somber 
pages-^V:;;*M.  'Eivier,-  his  :old:fpupil,M remembers  him;  as 
"sibrong'.'and  active;,  stiil  hanrdsome,. delightful  iBXonversa- 
tion,  ready  to  amuse  and  be  amused."  ;i: Indeed,  if  .the 
photographs  of  him  are  to  be  trusted,  there  rnust  have 
been  somfethihg"  sj^ecfallV  'Mtrai(6tiy^  m  tli'e  "''Sensitive,  ex- 
pressive,.,fapjQ',','yit|i!',!ife  ,|of|^y  l)rq,v^^'^ne  ,^ye,a,.,a«d  kindly 
mouth.  It  is  thQ,.|aGe  of  ,a,;pQet>i:-atherjtliW:  of  a  student^ 
and  makes  one  understand, certain  other  little  ^jjpmts  which 
his  friends  l;^y,^stries§(,;9ii.^qr  ,,^p^t^i;igg,  ,^i^„,^o,ve  for  and 
popularity «W;iiih  childr>eQ.  .;:  im-     ■u-.xm.  .-■  i,.-  u  r.i 

In  his  poems,:  'or  'at  anyrate'iiv  'the""earM6ir  'ones,  this 
light(^,^ij^9  ,£in(^,,ny)|,e„jexpE^ifip,,.prOjpo^^;ially,,  than  in 
the  Journal.  In  tfcieu'ifolwme  ealtedi "  GraMisdei  Mil,"  pub- 
lished in  !i8S4, 'and*; 'ContainmgTei'se'i'writteni  between  the 
ages  of  eigtff^fe'n  toQ' thirty ,"'tMf 6  arie  |i(:<eni'^"  addressed, 
now  to  his  sistfiir:*  n>owi.ta  Ql4*'.(jrenevese:)friendsy,and  now  to 
famous  memiof  other  countries  ■whom!  heiiad  seerwand  made 
friends  with»4K-  |Jas^ngp'Whieh,''tedd  Si^ae'-by  side  with  the 
"Journal  Intim6,*'""brin^"'a  dfei^tain'^^l^jim'^'hd' Sparkle  into 
aiDkiatherwise  somber.! pictmre.  Aamisl  wasmever  a;maater  of 
ppettcaliiorn»9::  hisoversej  compared:  to:his»pros8;isi4ana€ranjd 
fettered;;  it  never  reachlss^tire  glow!-and;  splendor; of. 'expres- 
sion') which;  mark  i  tlie  finestipassageS'ofvthfe  Journal.  -It-has 
a/bility',;:  though t^^beauty  even;  of;-a'  certain ';kind,'bu.t  no 
plastic pdwery  rtone'  of  i-the  incommunicable' tnagdc  whiohia 
Oepi^e.  Eliot  seeks  for  in  f^aio,  whileat  comes  unaskeid,nt)& 
d;eck;riwiith:  imperishable ■(ohai'cm  the  commonplace  laiotdh 
pkysie wand  the  simpler  emotions' ':bf"B  Tennyson;  'Od "a 
Burns.     Still  asiAmiel'aiwoEki  \m  rpo^ftry^iias'  aa  interest 


ylii  INTRODUCriON. 

for  those  who  are  interested  in  him.  Sincerity  is  written 
in  every  line  of  it.  Most  of  the  thoughts  and  experiences 
with  which  one  grows  familiar  in  the  Journal  are  repeated 
in  it;  the  same  joys,  the  same  aspirations,  the  same  sor- 
rows are  visible  throughout  it,  so  that  in  reading  it  one  is 
more  and  more  impressed  with  the  force  and  reality  of  the 
inner  life  which  has  left  behind  it  so  definite  an  image  of 
itself.  And  every  now  and  then  the  poems  add  a  detail, 
J.  new  impression,  which  seems  by  contrast  to  give  fresh 
Talue  to  the  fine-spun  speculations,  the  lofty  despairs,  of 
the  Journal.  Take  these  verses,  written  at  twenty-one, 
]o  his  y vunger  sister : 

**  Treize  ans  I  et  sur  ton  front  aucun  baiser  de  mere 
Ne  viendra,  pauvre  enfant,  invoquer  le  bonheur  ; 
Treize  ans  !  et  dans  ce  jour  nul  regard  de  ton  per© 
Ne  fera  d'allegresse  epanouir  ton  cceur. 

"Orpbeline,  c'est  la  le  nom  dont  tu  t'appelles, 
Oiseau  ne  dans  un  nid  que  la  foudre  a  brise  ; 
De  la  couvee,  helas  1  seals,  trois  petits,  sans  ailes 
Furent  lances  au  vent,  loin  du  reste  ecrase. 

"  Et,  semes  par  I'eclair  sur  les  monts,  dans  les  plaines, 
Un  meme  toit  encor  n'a  pu  les  abriter, 
Et  du  foyer  natal,  malgre  leurs  plaintes  vaines 
Dieu,  peut-etre  longiemps,  voudra  les  ecarter. 

•'  Pourtant  console-toi  !  pense,  dans  tes  alarmes, 
Qu'un  double  bien  te  reste,  espoir  et  souvenir; 
Une  main  dans  le  ciel  pour  essuyer  tes  larmes  ; 
Une  main  ici-bas,  enfant,  pour  te  benir." 

The  last  stanza  is  especially  poor,  and  in  none  of  them 
js  there  much  poetical  promise.  But  the  pathetic  image 
of  a  forlorn  and  orphaned  childhood,  "  un  nid  que  la 
foudre  a  brise,"  which  it  calls  up,  and  the  tone  of 
brotherly  affection,  linger  in  one's  memory.  And  through 
much  of  the  volume  of  1863,  in  the  verses  to  "  My  God- 
son," or  in  the  charming  poem  to  Loulou,  the  little  girl 
who  at  five  years  old,  daisy  in  band,  had  SAvorn  him  eternal 
friendship  over  Gretchen's  game  of  "  Ur  liebt  mich — liebt 
mich  nicht"  one  hears  the  same  tender  note. 


INTRODUCTION.  xliii 

'  Merci,  prophetique  fleurette, 
Corolle  a  I'oracle  vainqueur, 
Car  voila  trois  ans,  paquerette, 
Que  tu  m'ouvris  un  petit  coeur. 

"  Et  depuis  trois  Livers,  ma  belle, 
L'enfant  aux  grands  yeux  de  velours 
Maintient  son  petit  coeur  fidele, 
Fidele  comme  aux  premiers  jours." 

His  last  poetical  volume,  "Jour  a  Jour,"  published  in 
1880,  is  far  more  uniformly  melancholyand  didactic  in  tone 
than  the  two  earlier  collections  from  which  we  have  been 
quoting.  But  though  the  dominant  note  is  one  of  pain  and 
austerity,  of  philosophy  touched  with  emotion,  and  the 
general  tone  more  purely  introspective,  there  are  many 
traces  in  it  of  the  younger  Amiel,  dear,  for  very  ordinary 
human  reasons,  to  his  sisters  and  his  friends.  And,  in 
general,  the  pathetic  interest  of  the  book  for  all  whose 
sympathy  answers  to  what  George  Sand  calls  "  les  tragedies 
que  la  pensee  aperQoit  et  que  Vmil  ne  voit  point, '^  is  very 
great.  Amiel  published  it  a  year  before  his  death,  and 
the  struggle  with  failing  power  which  the  Journal  reveals 
to  us  in  its  saddest  and  most  intimate  reality,  is  here  ex- 
pressed in  more  reserved  and  measured  form.  Faith,  doubt, 
submission,  tenderness  of  feeling,  infinite  aspiration,  moral 
passion,  that  straining  hope  of  something  beyond,  which  is 
the  life  of  the  religious  soul — they  are  all  here,  and  the 
Dernier  Mot  with  which  the  sad  little  volume  ends  is  poor 
Amiel's  epitaph  on  himself,  his  conscious  farewell  to  that 
more  public  aspect  of  his  life  in  which  he  had  suffered 
much  and  achieved  comparatively  so  little. 

"Nous  avons  a  plaisir  complique  le  bonheur, 
Et  par  un  ideal  frivole  et  suborneur 

Attache  nos  cceurs  a  la  terre  ; 
Dupes  des  faux  dehors  ten  us  pour  I'important, 
Mille  choses  pour  nous  ont  du  prix    .     .     .     et  pourtant 

Une  seule  etait  necessaire. 

•'  Sans  fin  nous  prodiguons  calculs,  efforts,  travaux ; 
Cependant,  au  milieu  des  succes,  des  bravos 
En  nous  qaelque  chose  souoire ; 


Xliv  INTRODUCTION. 

Multipliant  nos  pas  et  nos  soins  de  fourmis. 
Nous  voudrions  nous  faire  une  foule  d'amis    .     .    • 
Pourtant  un  seul  pouvait  suffire. 

"  Victime  des  desirs,  esclave  des  regrets, 
L'homme  s'agite,  et  s'use,  et  vieillit  sans  progrSs 

Sur  sa  toile  de  Penelope  ; 
Comme  un  sage  mourant.  puissions-nous  dire  en  paix 
"  J'ai  trop  longtemps  erre,  cberchfi  ;  je  me  trompais ; 

Tout  est  bien,  mon  Dieu  m'enveloppe." 

Upon  the  small  remains  of  Amiel's  prose  outside  the 
Journal  there  is  no  occasion  to  dwell.  The  two  essays  on 
Madame  de  Stael  and  Kousseau  contain  much  fine  critical 
remark,  and  might  find  a  place  perhaps  as  an  appendix  to 
some  future  edition  of  the  Journal;  and  some  of  the 
"Pensees,"  published  in  the  latter  half  of  the  volume  con- 
taining the  "Grains  de  Mils,"  are  worthy  of  preservation. 
But  in  general,  whatever  he  himself  published  was  inferior 
^0  what  might  justly  have  been  expected  of  him,  and  no 
one  was  more  conscious  of  the  fact  than  himself. 

The  story  of  his  fatal  illness,  of  the  weary  struggle  for 
health  which  filled  the  last  seven  years  of  his  life,  is  abun- 
dantly told  in  the  Journal — we  must  not  repeat  it  here. 
He  had  never  been  a  strong  man,  and  at  fifty-three  he 
received,  at  his  doctor's  hands,  his  arret  de  mort.  We  are 
told  that  what  killed  him  was  "heart  disease,  complicated 
by  disease  of  the  larynx,"  and  that  he  suffered  "much 
and  long."  He  was  buried  in  the  cemetery  of  Clarens,  not 
far  from  his  great  contemporary  Alexander  Viuet;  and 
the  affection  of  a  sculptor  friend  provided  the  monument 
which  now  marks  his  resting-place. 

We  have  thus  exhausted  all  the  biographical  material 
■which  is  at  present  available  for  the  description  of  Amiel's 
life  and  relations  toward  the  outside  world.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  friends  to  whom  the  charge  of  his  memory 
has  been  specially  committed  may  see  their  way  in  the 
future,  if  not  to  a  formal  biography,  which  is  very  likely 
better  left  unattempted,  at  least  to  a  volume  of  Letters, 
which  would  complete  the  "Journal  Intime,"  as  Joubert's 


INTRODUCTION.  xlv 

**  Correspondence"  completes  the  "Pensees."  There  must 
be  ample  material  for  it;  and  Amiel's  letters  would  prob- 
ably supply  us  with  more  of  that  literary  and  critical  reflec- 
tion which  his  mind  produced  so  freely  and  so  well,  as  long 
as  there  was  no  question  of  publication,  but  which  is  at 
present  somewhat  overweighted  in  the  "Journal  Intime." 

But  whether  biography  or  correspondence  is  ever  forth- 
coming or  not,  the  Journal  remains — and  the  Journal  is 
the  important  matter.  We  shall  read  the  Letters  if  they 
appear,  as  we  now  read  the  Poems,  for  the  Journal's  sake. 
The  man  himself,  as  poet,  teacher,  and  litterateur,  pro- 
duced no  appreciable  effect  on  his  generation ;  but  the  post- 
humous record  of  his  inner  life  has  stirred  the  hearts  of 
readers  all  over  Europe,  and  won  him  a  niche  in  the 
House  of  Fame.  What  are  the  reasons  for  this  striking 
transformation  of  a  man's  position — a  transformation 
which,  as  M.  Scherer  says,  will  rank  among  the  curiosities 
of  literary  history?  In  other  words,  what  has  given  the 
"Journal  Intime"  its  sudden  and  unexpected  success? 

In  the  first  place,  no  doubt,  its  poetical  quality,  its 
beauty  of  manner — that  fine  literary  expression  in  which 
Amiel  has  been  able  to  clothe  the  subtler  processes  of 
thought,  no  less  than  the  secrets  of  religious  feeling,  or 
the  aspects  of  natural  scenery.  Style  is  what  gives  value 
and  currency  to  thought,  and  Amiel,  in  spite  of  all  his 
Germanisms,  has  style  of  the  best  kind.  He  possesses  in 
prose  that  indispensable  magic  which  he  lacks  in  poetry. 

His  style,  indeed,  is  by  no  means  always  in  harmony 
with  the  central  French  tradition.  Probably  a  French- 
man will  be  inclined  to  apply  Sainte-Beuve's  remarks  on 
Amiel's  elder  countryman,  Rodolphe  TOpffer,  to  Amiel 
himself:  "  Cest  ainsi  qti^oii  ecrit  dans  les  litteratures  qui 
ii'ont  jjoint  de  capitale,  de  quartier  general  classique,  ou 
d^Academie;  c''est  ainsi  qu^un  Allemand,  qu''un  Ameri- 
cain,  ou  meme  un  Anglais,  use  a  son  gre  de  sa  langue.  En 
France  au   contraire,  oil  il  y  a  une  Academie  Franpaise 

.  .  .  on  doit  tr Oliver  qiihin  tel  style  est  une  tres- 
grande  nouveaute  et  le  succesquHlaohtenu  un  evenenient:  il 


xivi  introduction: 

a  fallu  hien  des  circonstances  pour  y  pr Sparer. ^  Ko 
doubt  the  preparatory  circumstance  in  Amiel's  case  has 
been  just  that  Germanization  of  the  French  mind  on  which 
M.  Taine  and  M.  Bourget  dwell  with  so  much  emphasis. 
But,  be  this  as  it  may,  there  is  no  mistaking  the  enthu- 
siasm with  which  some  of  the  best  living  writers  of  French 
have  hailed  these  pages — instinct,  as  one  declares,  "  with  a 
strange  and  marvelous  poetry;"  full  of  phrases  "d^une 
intense  suggestion  de  beaute;  "  according  to  another.  Not 
that  the  whole  of  the  Journal  flows  with  the  same  ease,  the 
same  felicity.  There  are  a  certain  number  of  passages 
where  Amiel  ceases  to  be  the  writer,  and  becomes  the 
technical  philosopher;  there  are  others,  though  not  many, 
into  which  a  certain  German  heaviness  and  diffuseness  has 
crept,  dulling  the  edge  of  the  sentences,  and  retarding 
the  development  of  the  thought.  When  all  deductions 
have  been  made,  however,  Amiel's  claim  is  still  first  and 
foremost,  the  claim  of  the  poet  and  the  artist;  of  the  man 
whose  thought  uses  at  will  the  harmonies  and  resources  of 
speech,  and  who  has  attained,  in  words  of  his  own,  "to 
the  full  and  masterly  expression  of  himself." 

Then  to  the  poetical  beauty  of  manner  which  first 
helped  the  book  to  penetrate, /aire  sa  trouee,  as  the  French 
say,  we  must  add  its  extraordinary  psychological  interest. 
Both  as  poet  and  as  psychologist,  Amiel  makes  another 
link  in  a  special  tradition ;  he  adds  another  name  to  the 
list  of  those  who  have  won  a  hearing  from  their  fellows  as 
interpreters  of  the  inner  life,  as  the  revealers  of  man  to 
himself.  He  is  the  successor  of  St.  Augustine  and  Dante; 
he  is  the  brother  of  Obermann  and  Maurice  de  Guerin. 
What  others  have  done  for  the  spiritual  life  of  other  gener- 
ations he  has  done  for  the  spiritual  life  of  this,  and  the 
wealth  of  poetical,  scientific,  and  psychological  faculty 
which  he  has  brought  to  the  analysis  of  human  feeling  and 
human  perceptions  places  him — so  far  as  the  present  cen- 
tury is  concerned — at  the  head  of  the  small  and  delicately- 
gifted  class  to  which  he  belongs.  For  beside  his  spiritual 
experience    Obermann's    is    superficial,  and    Maurice  de 


INTRODUCTION.  xlvii 

Guerin's  a  passing  trouble,  a  mere  quick  outburst  of 
passionate  feeling.  Amiel  indeed  has  neither  the  con- 
tinuous romantic  beauty  nor  the  rich  descriptive  wealth  of 
Senancour.  The  Dent  du  Midi,  with  its  untrodden  soli- 
tude, its  primeval  silences  and  its  hovering  eagles,  the 
Swiss  landscape  described  in  the  "  Fragment  on  the  Ranz 
des  Vaches,"  the  summer  moonlight  on  the  Lake  of 
Neufchdtel — these  various  pictures  are  the  work  of  one  of 
the  most  finished  artists  in  words  that  literature  has  pro- 
duced. But  how  true  George  Sand's  criticism,  is!  '■^  Chez 
Ohermann  la  sensihilite  est  active,V intelligence  est paresseuse 
ou  insuffisante."  He  has  a  certain  antique  power  of  mak- 
ing the  truisms  of  life  splendid  and  impressive.  No  one 
can  write  more  poetical  exercises  than  he  on  the  old  text 
of  pulvis  et  umbra  sumus,  but  beyond  this  his  philoso- 
phical power  fails  him.  As  soon  as  he  leaves  the  region 
of  romantic  description  how  wearisome  the  pages  are  apt 
to  grow!  Instead  of  a  poet,  "un  ergoteur  VoUairien;" 
instead  of  the  explorer  of  fresh  secrets  of  the  heart,  a 
Parisian  talking  a  cheap  cynicism!  Intellectually,  the 
ground  gives  way;  there  is  no  solidity  of  knowledge,  no 
range  of  thought.  Above  all,  the  scientific  idea  in  our 
sense  is  almost  absent;  so  that  while  Amiel  represents  the 
modern  mind  at  its  keenest  and  best,  dealing  at  will  with 
the  vast  additions  to  knowledge  which  the  last  fifty  years 
have  brought  forth,  Senancour  is  still  in  the  eighteenth- 
century  stage,  talking  like  Rousseau  of  a  return  to  primi- 
tive manners,  and  discussing  Christiani'ty  in  the  tone  of 
the  "Encyclopedic." 

Maurice  de  Guerin,  again,  is  the  inventor  of  new  terms 
in  the  language  of  feeling,  a  poet  as  Amiel  and  Senancour 
are.  His  love  of  nature,  the  earth-passion  which  breathes 
ia  his  letters  and  journal,  has  a  strange  savor,  a  force 
and  flame  which  is  all  his  own.  Beside  his  actual  sense  of 
community  with  the  visible  world,  Amiel's  love  of  land- 
scape has  a  tame,  didactic  air.  The  Swiss  thinker  is  too 
ready  to  make  nature  a  mere  vehicle  of  moral  or  philo- 
sophical thought;  Maurice  de  Guerin  loves  her  for  herself 


slviii  INTRODUCTION. 

alone,  and  has  found  words  to  describe  her  influence  over 
him  of  extraordinary  individuality  and  power.  But  for 
the  rest  the  story  of  his  inner  life  has  but  small  value  in 
the  history  of  thought.  His  difficulties  do  not  go  deep 
enough ;  his  struggle  is  intellectually  not  serious  enough 
— we  see  in  it  only  a  common  incident  of  modern  experi- 
ence poetically  told;  it  throws  no  light  on  the  genesis  and 
progress  of  the  great  forces  which  are  molding  and  reno- 
vating the  thought  of  the  present — it  tells  us  nothing  for 
the  future. 

No — there  is  much  more  in  the  "Journal  Intime" 
than  the  imagination  or  the  poetical  glow  which  Amiel 
shares  with  his  immediate  predecessors  in  the  art  of  con- 
fession-writing. His  book  is  representative  of  human  ex- 
perience in  its  more  intimate  and  personal  forms  to  aij 
extent  hardly  equaled  since  Rousseau.  For  his  study  of 
himself  is  only  a  means  to  an  end.  "What  interests  me 
in  myself,"  he  declares,  "is  that  I  find  in  my  own  case  a 
genuine  example  of  human  nature,  and  therefore  a  speci- 
men of  general  value. "  It  is  the  human  consciousness  of 
to-day,  of  the  modern  world,  in  its  two-fold  relation — its 
relation  toward  the  infinite  and  the  unknowable,  and  its 
relation  toward  the  visible  universe  which  conditions  it — 
which  is  the  real  subject  of  the  "Journal  Intime."  There 
are  few  elements  of  our  present  life  which,  in  a  greater  or 
less  degree,  are  not  made  vocal  in  these  pages.  Amiel's 
intellectual  interest  is  untiring.  Philosophy,  science, 
letters,  art — he  has  penetrated  the  spirit  of  them  all ;  there 
is  nothing,  or  almost  nothing,  within  the  wide  range  of 
modern  activities  which  he  has  not  at  one  time  or  other 
felt  the  attraction  of,  and  learned  in  some  sense  to  under- 
stand. "Amiel,"  says  M.  Kenan,  "has  his  defects,  but 
he  was  certainly  one  of  the  strongest  speculative  heads 
who,  during  the  period  from  1845  to  1880,  have  reflected 
on  the  nature  of  things."  And,  although  a  certam  fatal 
spiritual  weakness  debarred  him  to  a  great  extent  iroJi  the 
world  of  practical  life,  his  sympathy  with  action,  whether 
it  was  the  action  of  the  politician  or  the  social  reformer. 


INTRODtrCTION'.  xlix 

or  merely  that  steady  half-conscious  performance  of  its 
daily  duty  which  keeps  humanity  sweet  and  living,  was 
unfailing.  His  horizon  was  not  bounded  by  his  own 
"prison-cell,"  or  by  that  dream-world  which  he  has 
described  with  so  much  subtle  beauty;  rather  the  energies 
which  should  have  found  their  natural  expression  in  liter- 
ary or  family  life,  pent  up  within  the  mind  itself,  excited 
in  it  a  perpetual  eagerness  for  intellectual  discovery,  and 
new  powers  of  sympathy  with  whatever  crossed  its  field 
of  vision. 

So  that  the  thinker,  the  historian,  the  critic,  will  find 
himself  at  home  with  Amiel.  The  power  of  organizing 
his  thought,  the  art  of  writing  a  book,  monumentum  aere 
perennius,  was  indeed  denied  him — he  laments  it  bitterly ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  receptivity  itself,  responsive 
to  all  the  great  forces  which  move  the  time,  catching  and 
reflecting  on  the  mobile  mirror  of  his  mind  whatever  winds 
are  blowing  from  the  hills  of  thought. 

And  if  the  thinker  is  at  home  with  him,  so  too  are  the 
religious  minds,  the  natures  for  whom  God  and  duty  are 
the  foundation  of  existence.  Here,  indeed,  we  come  to  the 
innermost  secret  of  Amiel's  charm,  the  fact  which  prob- 
ably goes  farther  than  any  other  to  explain  his  fascination 
for  a  large  and  growing  class  of  readers.  For,  while  he 
represents  all  the  intellectual  complexities  of  a  time  bewil- 
dered by  the  range  and  number  of  its  own  acquisitions,  the 
religious  instinct  in  him  is  as  strong  and  tenacious  as  in 
any  of  the  representative  exponents  of  the  life  of  faith. 
The  intellect  is  clear  and  unwavering;  but  the  heart  clings 
to  old  traditions,  and  steadies  itself  on  the  rock  of  duty. 
His  Calvinistic  training  lingers  long  in  him;  and  what 
detaches  him  from  the  Hegelian  school,  with  which  he  has 
much  in  common,  is  his  own  stronger  sense  of  personal 
need,  his  preoccupation  with  the  idea  of  "sin."  "He 
speaks,"  says  M.  Renan  contemptuously,  "of  sin,  of  salva- 
tion, of  redemption,  and  conversion,  as  if  these  things  were 
realities.  He  asks  me 'What  does  M.  Renan  make  of  sin?  ' 
ji^h  bein^jecrois  queje  le  supprime."  But  it  is  just  because 


1  INTliODUCTION. 

Amiel  is  profoundly  sensitive  to  the  problems  of  evil  and 
responsibility,  and  M.  Eenan  dismisses  them  with  this 
half-tolerant,  half-skeptical  smile,  that  M.  Kenan's 
"  Souvenirs  "  inform  and  entertain  us,  while  the  "  Journal 
In  time  "  makes  a  deep  impression  on  that  moral  sense  which 
is  at  the  root  of  individual  and  national  life. 

The  Journal  is  full,  indeed,  of  this  note  of  personal  reli- 
gion. Religion,  Amiel  declares  again  and  again,  cannot 
be  replaced  by  philosophy.  The  redemption  of  the 
intelligence  is  not  the  redemption  of  the  heart.  The  phil- 
osopher and  critic  may  succeed  in  demonstrating  that  the 
various  definite  forms  into  which  the  religious  thought  of 
man  has  thrown  itself  throughout  history  are  not  absolute 
truth,  but  only  the  temporary  creations  of  a  need  which 
gradually  and  surely  outgrows  them  all.  "  The  Trinity, 
the  life  to  come,  paradise  and  hell,  may  cease  to  be  dogmas 
and  spiritual  realities,  the  form  and  the  letter  may  vanish 
away — the  question  of  humanity  remains:  What  is  it 
which  saves?  "  Amiel's  answer  to  the  question  will  recall 
to  a  wide  English  circle  the  method  and  spirit  of  an 
English  teacher,  whose  dear  memory  lives  to-day  in  many 
a  heart,  and  is  guiding  many  an  effort  in  the  cause  of  good 
— the  method  and  spirit  of  the  late  Professor  Green  of 
Balliol.  In  many  respects  there  was  a  gulf  of  difference 
between  the  two  men.  The  one  had  all  the  will  and  force 
of  personality  which  the  other  lacked.  But  the  ultimate 
creed  of  both,  the  way  in  which  both  interpret  the  facts  of 
nature  and  consciousness,  is  practically  the  same.  In 
Amiel's  case,  we  have  to  gather  it  through  all  the  varia- 
tions and  inevitable  contradictionsof  a  Journal  which  is  the 
reflection  of  a  life,  not  the  systematic  expression  of  a  series  of 
ideas,  but  the  main  results  are  clear  enough.  Man  is  saved 
by  love  and  duty,  and  by  the  hope  which  springs  from 
duty,  or  rather  from  the  moral  facts  of  consciousness,  as  a 
flower  springs  from  the  soil.  Conscience  and  the  moral 
progress  of  the  race — these  are  his  points  of  departure. 
Faith  in  the  reality  of  the  moral  law  is  what  he  clings  to 
when  his  inherited  creed  has  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  the 


tNTRODUGTION.  \{ 

intellect,  and  after  all  the  storms  of  pessimism  and  necessi- 
tarianism have  passed  over  him.  The  reconciliation  of  the 
two  certitudes,  the  two  methods,  the  scientific  and  the 
religious,  "is  to  be  sought  for  in  that  moral  law  which  is 
also  a  fact,  and  every  step  of  which  requires  for  its  explana- 
tion another  cosmos  than  the  cosmos  of  necessity."  "Na- 
ture is  the  virtuality  of  mind,  the  soul  the  fruit  of  life,  and 
liberty  the  flower  of  necessity."  Consciousness  is  the  one 
fixed  point  in  this  boundless  and  bottomless  gulf  of  things, 
and  the  soul's  inward  law,  as  it  has  been  painfully  elabo- 
rated by  human  history,  the  only  revelation  of  God, 

The  only  but  the  sufficient  revelation !  For  this  first 
article  of  a  reasonable  creed  is  the  key  to  all  else — the  clue 
which  leads  the  mind  safely  through  the  labyrinth  of 
doubt  into  the  presence  of  the  Eternal.  Without  attempt- 
ing to  define  the  indefinable,  the  soul  rises  from  the  belief 
in  the  reality  of  love  and  duty  to  the  belief  in  "  a  holy  will 
at  the  root  of  nature  and  destiny" — for  "  if  man  is  capable 
of  conceiving  goodness,  the  general  principle  of  things, 
which  cannot  be  inferior  to  man,  must  be  good."  And 
then  the  religious  consciousness  seizes  on  this  intellectual 
deduction,  and  clothes  it  in  language  of  the  heart,  in  the 
tender  and  beautiful  language  of  faith.  "  There  is  but  one 
thing  needful — to  possess  God.  All  our  senses,  all  our 
powers  of  mind  and  soul,  are  so  many  ways  of  approaching 
the  Divine,  so  many  modes  of  tasting  and  adoring  God. 
Religion  is  not  a  method ;  it  is  a  life — a  higher  and  super- 
natural life,  mystical  in  its  root  and  practical  in  its  fruits; 
a  communion  with  God,  a  calm  and  deep  enthusiasm,  a 
love  which  radiates,  a  force  which  acts,  a  happiness  which 
overflows."  And  the  faith  of  his  youth  and  his  maturity 
bears  the  shock  of  suffering,  and  supports  him  through  his 
last  hours.  He  writes  a  few  months  before  the  end :  "  The 
animal  expires;  man  surrenders  his  soul  to  the  author  of 
the  soul."  .  .  .  "  "We  dream  alone,  we  suffer  alone,  we 
die  alone,  we  inhabit  the  last  resting-place  alone.  But 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  opening  our  solitude  to 
God.     And  so  what  was  an  austere  monologue  becomes 


lii  INTRODUCTION. 

t  iulogue,  reluctance  becomes  docility,  renunciation  passes 
iato  peace,  and  the  sense  of  painful  defeat  is  lost  in  the 
sense  of  recovered  liberty" — "  Tout  est  Men,  mon  Dieu 
7ti'enveloppe." 

Nor  is  this  all.  It  is  not  only  that  Amiel's  inmost 
thought  and  affections  are  stayed  on  this  conception  of  "  a 
holy  will  at  the  root  of  nature  and  destiny" — in  a  certain 
very  real  sense  he  is  a  Christian.  No  one  is  more  sensitive 
than  he  to  the  contribution  which  Christianity  has  made 
to  the  religious  wealth  of  mankind ;  no  one  more  penetrated 
than  he  with  the  truth  of  its  essential  doctrine  "  death 
unto  sin  and  a  new  birth  unto  righteousness."  " The  reli- 
gion of  sin,  of  repentance  and  reconciliation,"  he  cries, 
"  the  religion  of  the  new  birth  and  of  eternal  life,  is  not 
a  religion  to  be  ashamed  of."  The  world  has  found  in- 
spiration and  guidance  for  eighteen  centuries  in  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  Jesus.  "The  gospel  has  modified 
the  world  and  consoled  mankind,"  and  so  "we  may  hold 
aloof  from  the  churches  and  yet  bow  ourselves  before 
Jesus.  We  may  be  suspicious  of  the  clergy  and  refuse  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  catechisms,  and  yet  love  the 
Holy  and  the  Just  who  came  to  save  and  not  to  curse." 
And  in  fact  Amiel's  whole  life  and  thought  are  steeped  in 
Christianity.  He  is  the  spiritual  descendant  of  one  of  the 
intensest  and  most  individual  forms  of  Christian  belief,  and 
traces  of  his  religious  ancestry  are  visible  in  him  at  every 
step.  Protestantism  of  the  sincerer  and  nobler  kind  leaves 
an  indelible  impression  on  the  nature  which  has  once  sur- 
rounded itself  to  the  austere  and  penetrating  influences 
flowing  from  the  religion  of  sin  and  grace;  and  so  far  as 
feeling  and  temperament  are  concerned,  Amiel  retained 
throughout  his  life  the  marks  of  Calvinism  and  Geneva. 

And  yet  how  clear  the  intellect  remains,  through  all 
the  anxieties  of  thought,  and  in  the  face  of  the  soul's 
dearest  memories  and  most  passionate  needs!  Amiel,  as 
soon  as  his  reasoning  faculty  has  once  reached  its  maturity, 
never  deceives  himself  as  to  the  special  claims  of  the  reli- 
gion which  by  instinct  and  inheritance  he  loves;  he  makes 


INTRODUCTION.  liii 

no  compromise  with  dogma  or  with  miracle.  Beyond  the 
religions  of  the  present  he  sees  always  the  essential  religion 
which  lasts  when  all  local  forms  and  marvels  have  passed 
away;  and  as  years  go  on,  with  more  and  more  clearness  of 
conviction,  he  learns  to  regard  all  special  belief  s  and  systems 
as  "prejudices,  useful  in  practice,  but  still  narrownesses  of 
the  mind ;  "  misgrowths  of  thought,  necessary  in  their  time 
and  place,  but  still  of  no  absolute  value,  and  having  no 
final  claim  on  the  thought  of  man. 

And  it  is  just  here — in  this  mixture  of  the  faith  which 
clings  and  aspires,  with  the  intellectual  pliancy  which 
allows  the  mind  to  sway  freely  under  the  pressure  of  life 
and  experience,  and  the  deep  respect  for  truth,  which  will 
allow  nothing  to  interfere  between  thought  and  its 
appointed  tasks — that  Amiel's  special  claim  upon  us  lies. 
It  is  this  balance  of  forces  in  him  which  makes  him  so 
widely  representative  of  the  modern  mind — of  its  doubts, 
its  convictions,  its  hopes.  He  speaks  for  the  life  of  to-day 
as  no  other  single  voice  has  yet  spoken  for  it ;  in  his  con- 
tradictions, his  fears,  his  despairs,  and  yet  in  the  constant 
straining  toward  the  unseen  and  the  ideal  which  gives  a 
fundamental  unity  to  his  inner  life,  he  is  the  type  of  a 
generation  universally  touched  with  doubt,  and  yet  as  sen- 
sitive to  the  need  of  faith  as  any  that  have  gone  before  it ; 
more  widely  conscious  than  its  predecessors  of  the  limita- 
tions of  the  human  mind,  and  of  the  iron  pressure  of  man's 
physical  environment;  but  at  the  same  time — paradox  as 
it  may  seem — more  conscious  of  man's  greatness,  more 
deeply  thrilled  by  the  spectacle  of  the  nobility  and  beauty 
interwoven  with  the  universe. 

And  he  plays  this  part  of  his  so  modestly,  with  so  much 
hesitation,  so  much  doubt  of  his  thought  and  of  himself! 
He  is  no  preacher,  like  Emerson  and  Carlyle,  with  whom, 
as  poet  and  idealist,  he  has  so  much  in  common ;  there  is 
little  resemblance  between  him  and  the  men  who  speak, 
as  it  were,  from  a  height  to  the  crowd  beneath,  sure  always 
of  themselves  and  what  they  have  to  say.  And  here  again 
he  represents  the  present  and  foreshadowp  the  future. 


li  V  INTROD  UGTION. 

For  the  age  of  the  preachers  is  passing  those  who  speak 
with  authority  on  the  riddles  of  life  and  nature  as  the 
priests  of  this  or  that  all-explaining  dogma,  are  becoming 
less  important  as  knowledge  spreads,  and  the  complexity  of 
experience  is  made  evident  to  a  wider  range  of  minds. 
The  force  of  things  is  against  the  certain  people.  Again 
and  again  truth  escapes  from  the  prisons  made  for  her  by 
mortal  hands,  and  as  humanity  carries  on  the  endless  pur- 
suit she  will  pay  more  and  more  respectful  heed  to  voices 
like  this  voice  of  the  lonely  Genevese  thinker — with  its 
pathetic  alterations  of  hope  and  fear,  and  the  moral  stead- 
fastness which  is  the  inmost  note  of  it — to  these  medita- 
tive lives,  which,  through  all  the  ebb  and  flow  of  thought, 
and  in  the  dim  ways  of  doubt  and  suffering,  rich  in  knowl- 
edge, and  yet  rich  in  faith,  grasp  in  new  forms,  and  pro- 
claim to  us  in  new  words, 

"  The  mighty  hopes  which  make  us  m«n." 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 


[Where  no  other  name  is  mentioned,  Geneva  is  to  be  understood  as 
the  author's  place  of  residence.] 

Berlin  July  16.  1848. — There  is  but  one  thing  need- 
ful— to  possess  God.  All  our  senses,  all  our  powers  of 
mind  and  soul,  all  our  external  resources,  are  so  many  ways 
of  approaching  the  divinity,  so  many  modes  of  tasting 
and  of  adoring  God.  "We  must  learn  to  detach  ourselves 
from  all  that  is  capable  of  being  lost,  to  bind  ourselves  abso- 
lutely only  to  what  is  absolute  and  eternal,  and  to  enjoy 
the  rest  as  a  loan,  a  usufruct.  ...  To  adore,  to  un- 
derstand, to  receive,  to  feel,  to  give,  to  act:  there  is  my  law 
my  duty,  my  happiness,  my  heaven.  Let  come  what  come 
will — even  death.  Only  be  at  peace  with  self,  live  in  the 
presence  of  God,  in  communion  with  Him,  and  leave  the 
guidance  of  existence  to  those  universal  powers  against 
whom  thou  canst  do  nothing!  If  death  gives  me  time,  so 
much  the  better.  If  its  summons  is  near,  so  much  the 
better  still ;  if  a  half-death  overtake  me,  still  so  much  the 
better,  for  so  the  path  of  success  is  closed  to  me  only  that 
I  may  find  opening  before  me  the  path  of  heroism,  of 
moral  greatness  and  resignation.  Every  life  has  its  poten- 
tiality of  greatness,  and  as  it  is  impossible  to  be  outside 
God,  the  best  is  consciously  to  dwell  in  Him. 

Berlin,  July  20,  1848. — It  gives  liberty  and  breadth  to 
thought,  to  learn  to  judge  our  own  epoch  from  the  point 
of  view  of  universal  history,  history  from  the  point  of  view 
of  geological  periods,  geology  from  the  point  of  view  of 
astronomy.  When  the  duration  of  a  man's  life  or  of  a 
people's  life  appears  to  us  as  microscopic  as  that  of  a  fly 


2  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

and  inversely,  the  life  of  a  gnat  as  infinite  as  that  of  a 
celestial  body,  with  all  its  dust  of  nations,  we  feel  our- 
selves at  once  very  small  and  very  great,  and  we  are  able, 
as  it  were,  to  survey  from  the  height  of  the  spheres  our 
own  existence,  and  the  little  whirlwinds  which  agitate 
our  liltVEm;<^eCJ  '    ^  C  ]''        "^  '     T  T"   !"  '^  F     ' 

AlHt)dttoni  thtfre-is  but  one  subject  ofistudy^  tba  forms 
and  metamorphoses  of  mind._^Jl  other  subjects  may  be 
reduced  to  that;   all  other  studies  bring  us  back  to  this 

Geneva,  Aprif^iO;"!^^'.-^!*  is  ■•sixijyews*  to-day  since 
I  last  left  Geneva.  How  many  journeys,  how  many  im- 
pressions, oibsertatiotrsj'thotlghts,  hb'w  many  forms  of' men 
and  things hd've  sitice''tfi^n  pStssed  befbre  m^'aod  in  me! 
Tlie  ia^i"^SeK^eii'*y^ats  hdve  b^efi  the  most  ■important!  of  my 
fife: 'they  IraVfe'lbeen-'tfie  i^o vitiate  of  my  iiit^lligenGe,-tb« 
mitiaticin  of  iiSifbefn^'Mto  feeirfg.-  "'  -i"'--  •Jir;"it>:M  ':*.;  j.ra 
'  'i'jifee ''InoWstOTl-mS  •this''afterJio9n':"-Fottr':WoS«)rtri8fg 
pliim-tt'ee^'aiidJ^eEtch  tr'e^s!  W!iat  a  dMeteiic^  from' ■Six 
vears"a^d,');'E*hen  the  cherry-itf'feesi''adbriiM'  iA  their^greeft 
spring'  'dress  ^^udlkdfen-  with'  thfeir  bridal 'ft5Wer8,-'«mikd 
at  my*Se^afli)&rfe  iilong  tlie''Vab(Ioi^''^ld8*'and  tbe^lilaes 
of'  Burgulidy''th)*feM^  gi'^'at  'Mts'  of  pe¥ftl«ftei4nto-'niy 
^cef  .  V^-*.  •"■•-■^  "'^^^  t-i-'^-'i 'T.n:,:.:  v;  ,:.:•:;  ^:  iK.f,^^.t•'.^ 
''''M'^^3fT^4^^— J-Mve  p  ^*h3^-''mw&r(i-  assnmncfe 

o|  geniusV  or '"any  pr^sentimerit'  of  i^lory  '''<!>¥'■  of  ■  'happiaeisft 
t^Tiave'fiev^r  s^eii"  niys^lf  Ih^rtiagrnation  ^at^or- 'famous, 
of'eten  a  h'usba'fid,''a  fa^tRe*r,' an  iMuentiaJ  citizen;  ''Thife 
mditferencetp  the'  'fu'tna're,''-t'hTS' ''Absolute  s^f-distrtist^  "iar^ 
no  dotibt, ' to  b^ "iid'ken'.'as •^i^ris'i  ' "Wliat  dfeame  f  hdVe 'are 
ail' vague  a^'d  in^efinitd^,  I  ott^Wt-''ir(^t-'toli'te^'-for'I-'ajrn''ftoi»' 
scarc%  c^ap'kby-cfi'living.''  Reeognfufe  ycJUr'^iaceV  l^t  the 
living  live;  .and^you^  gather  t6geth6^i^'"yotfr  ^tholtghttsi  leave 
behini^'ybtiift^fQgad)^  of  ^'elmg^  gild  ideas  ^^  b^i©'  wiost 

useful  "g6.  'Kenoiiiibe:  yt)Yirself,  aSc^t  the'-^ttp'givett  yt»ti', 
j^ith  its'hdnfey'ahd  its  gall,'^!5it  cbriies.  '-'BHn^-  God^  ddwti 

*  *^  Atrfrel  left  Ge6^*£  f6r  Parrs:ii»dBdrlm:iii  April;  l843,=thfifKW»df 
\^  yeai,  184lT43»tba;TMigrJbie«p,ftpentiitt  Italy  a^^^^lyviL  F  ntauhC 


AMI fSL'S  JOURNAL.  3 

into  your  heart.  Embalm  your  soul  in  Him  now,  make 
within  you  a  temple  for  the  Holy  Spirit,  be  diligent  in 
good  works,  make  others  happier  and  better. 

Put  personal  ambition  away  from  you,  and  then  you 
will  find  consolation  in  living  or  in  dying,  whatever  may 
happen  to  you. 

May  27j  1849. — To  be  misunderstood  even  by  those 
whom  one  loves  is  the  cross  and  bitterness  of  life  It  is  the 
secret  of  that  sad  and  melancholy  smile  on  the  lips  of  great 
men  which  so  few  understand ;  it  is  the  crudest  trial  re- 
served for  self-devotion;  it  is  what  must  have  oftenest 
wrung  the  heart  of  the  Son  of  man;  and  if  God  could 
suffer,  it  would  be  the  wound  we  should  be  forever  inflict- 
ing upon  Him.  He  also — He  above  all — is  the  great  mis- 
understood, the  least  comprehended.  Alas!  alas!  never 
to  tire,  never  to  grow  cold ;  to  be  patient,  sympathetic, 
tender ;  to  look  for  the  budding  flower  and  the  opening  heart ; 
to  hope  always,  like  God;  to  love  always — this  is  duty. 

June  3,  1849. — Fresh  and  delicious  weather.  A  long 
morning  walk.  Surprised  the  hawthorn  and  wild  rose- 
trees  in  flower.  From  the  fields  vague  and  health-giving 
scents.  The  Voirons  fringed  with  dazzling  mists,  and 
tints  of  exquisite  softness  over  the  Saleve.  Work  in  the 
fields,  two  delightful  donkeys,  one  pulling  greedily  at  a 
hedge  of  barberry.  Then  three  little  children.  I  felt  a 
boundless  desire  to  caress  and  play  with  them.  To  be  able 
to  enjoy  such  leisure,  these  peaceful  fields,  fine  weather, 
contentment;  to  have  my  two  sisters  with  me;  to  rest  my 
eyes  on  balmy  meadows  and  blossoming  orchards;  to  listen 
to  the  life  singing  in  the  grass  and  on  the  trees;  to  be  so 
calmly  happy — is  it  not  too  much?  is  it  deserved?  0  let 
me  enjoy  it  without  reproaching  heaven  for  its  kindness; 
let  me  enjoy  it  with  gratitude.  The  days  of  trouble  come 
soon  enough  and  are  many  enough.  I  have  no  presenti- 
ment of  happiness.  All  the  more  let  me  profit  by  the 
present.  Come,  kind  nature,  smile  and  enchant  me!  Veil 
from  me  awhile  my  own  griefs  and  those  of  others;  let 
me  see  only  the  folds  of  thy  queenly  mantle,   and  hide 


4  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

all  miserable  and  ignoble  things  from  me  under  thy  boun- 
ties  and  splendors  ! 

October  1,  1849. — Yesterday,  Sunday,  I  read  through 
and  made  extracts  from  the  gospel  of  St.  John.  It  con- 
jBrmed  me  in  my  belief  that  about  Jesus  we  must  believe 
no  one  but  Himself,  and  that  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  dis- 
cover the  true  image  of  the  founder  behind  all  the  pris- 
matic reactions  through  which  it  comes  to  us,  and  which 
alter  it  more  or  less.  A  ray  of  heavenly  light  traversing 
human  life,  the  message  of  Christ  has  been  broken  into  a 
thousand  rainbow  colors  and  carried  in  a  thousand  direc- 
tions. It  is  the  historical  task  of  Christianity  to  assume 
with  every  succeeding  age  a  fresh  metamorphosis,  and  to 
be  forever  spiritualizing  more  and  more  her  understand- 
ing of  the  Christ  and  of  salvation. 

I  am  astounded  at  the  incredible  amount  of  Judaism  and 
formalism  which  still  exists  nineteen  centuries  after  the 
Redeemer's  proclamation,  "  it  is  the  letter  which  killeth  " 
— after  his  protest  against  a  dead  symbolism.  The  nevf 
religion  is  so  profound  that  it  is  not  understood  even  now, 
and  would  seem  a  blasphemy  to  the  greater  number  of 
Christians.  The  person  of  Christ  is  the  center  of  it. 
Redemption,  eternal  life,  divinity,  humanity,  propitiation, 
incarnation,  judgment,  Satan,  heaven  and  hell — all  these 
beliefs  have  been  so  materialized  and  coarsened,  that  with 
a  strange  irony  they  present  to  us  the  spectacle  of  things 
having  a  profound  meaning  and  yet  carnally  interpreted. 
Christian  boldness  and  Christian  liberty  must  be  recon- 
quered ;  it  is  the  church  which  is  heretical,  the  church 
whose  sight  is  troubled  and  her  heart  timid.  Whether 
we  will  or  no,  there  is  an  esoteric  doctrine,  there  is 
a  relative  revelation  ;  each  man  enters  into  God  so  much 
as  God  enters  into  him,  or  as  Angelus,*  I  think,  said, 
"  the  eye  by  which  I  see  God  is  the  same  eye  by  which 
He  sees  me." 

*  Angelus  Silesius,  otherwise  Johannes  Scheffler,  the  Qerman  seven* 
teenth  century  hymn-writer,  whose  tender  and  mystical  verses  have 
been  popularised  in  England  by  Miss  Winkworth's  translations  in  the 
Lyra  Oermanica. 


A  MIED8  JO  URN  A  L.  5 

Christianity,  if  it  is  to  triumph  over  pantheism,  must 
absorb  it.  To  our  pusillanimous  eyes  Jesus  would  have 
borne  the  marks  of  a  hateful  pantheism,  for  he  confirmed 
the  Biblical  phrase  "ye  are  gods,"  and  so  would  St.  Paul, 
who  tells  us  that  we  are  of  "the  race  of  God."  Our  cen- 
tury wants  a  new  theology — that  is  to  say,  a  more  profound 
explanation  of  the  nature  of  Christ  and  of  the  light  which 
it  flashes  upon  heaven  and  upon  humanity. 


Heroism  is  the  brilliant  triumph  of  the  soul  over  the 
flesh — that  is  to  say,  over  fear:  fear  of  poverty,  of  suffer- 
ing, of  calumny,  of  sickness,  of  isolation,  and  of  death. 
There  is  no  serious  piety  without  heroism.  Heroism  is  the 
dazzling  and  glorious  concentration  of^^nirage. 

Duty  has  the  virtue  of  making  us  feel  the  reality  of  a  posi- 
tive world  while  at  the  same  time  detaching  us  from  it. 


December  30,1850. — The  relation  of  thought  to  action 
filled  my  mind  on  waking,  and  I  found  myself  carried 
toward  a  bizarre  formula,  which  seems  to  have  something 
of  the  night  still  clinging  about  it:  Action  is  but 
coarsened  thought;  thought  become  concrete,  obscure,  and 
unconscious.  It  seemed  to  me  that  our  most  trifling  ac- 
tions, of  eating,  walking,  and  sleeping,  were  the  condensa- 
tion of  a  multitude  of  truths  and  thoughts,  and  that  the 
wealth  of  ideas  involved  was  in  direct  proportion  to  the 
commonness  of  the  action  (as  our  dreams  are  the  more 
active,  the  deeper  our  sleep).  We  are  hemmed  round  with 
mystery,  and  the  greatest  mysteries  are  contained  in  what 
we  see  and  do  every  day.  In  all  spontaneity  the  work  of 
creation  is  reproduced  in  analogy.  When  the  spontaneity 
is  unconscious,  you  have  simple  action;  when  it  is  con- 
scious, intelligent  and  moral  action.  At  bottom  this  is 
nothing  more  than  the  proposition  of  Hegel:  ["What  is 
rational  is  real;  and  what  is  real  is  rational;"]  but  it  had 
never  seemed  to  me  more  evident,  more  palpable.  Every- 
thing which  is,  is  thought,  but  not  conscious  and  indi- 


6  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

vidual  thought.  The  human  intelligence  is  but  the  con- 
sciousness of  being.  It  is  what  I  have  formulated  before: 
Everything  is  a  symbol  of  a  symbol,  and  a  symbol  of  what? 
of  mind. 

.  .  .  I  have  just  been  looking  through  the  complete 
works  of  Montesquieu,  and  cannot  yet  make  plain  to  my- 
self the  impression  left  on  me  by  this  singular  style,  with 
its  mixture  of  gravity  and  affectation,  of  carelessness  and 
precision,  of  strength  and  delicacy;  so  full  of  sly  intention 
for  all  its  coldness,  expressing  at  once  inquisitiveness  and 
indifference,  abrupt,  piecemeal,  like  notes  thrown  together 
haphazard,  and  yet  deliberate.  I  seem  to  see  an  intelli- 
gence naturally  grave  and  austere  donning  a  dress  of  wit 
for  convention's  sake.  The  author  desires  to  entertain  as 
much  as  to  teach,  the  thinker  is  also  a  bel-esprit,  the  juris- 
consult has  a  touch  of  the  coxcomb,  and  a  perfumed  breath 
from  the  temple  of  Venus  has  penetrated  the  tribunal  of 
Minos.  Here  we  have  austerity,  as  the  century  under- 
stood it,  in  philosophy  or  religion.  In  Montesquieu,  the 
art,  if  there  is  any,  lies  not  in  the  words  but  in  the  matter. 
The  words  run  freely  and  lightly,  but  the  thought  is  self- 
conscious. 


Each  bud  flowers  but  once  and  each  flower  has  but  its 
minute  of  perfect  beauty;  so,  in  tbe  garden  of  the  soul 
each  feeling  has,  as  it  were,  its  flowering  instant,  its  one 
and  only  moment  of  expansive  grace  and  radiant  king- 
ship. Each  star  passes  but  once  in  the  night  through  the 
meridian  over  our  heads  and  shines  there  but  an  instant; 
so,  in  the  heaven  of  the  mind  each  thought  touches  its 
zenith  but  once,  and  in  that  moment  all  its  brilliancy  and 
all  its  greatness  culminate.  Artist,  poet,  or  thinker,  if  you 
want  to  fix  and  immortalize  your  ideas  or  your  feelings, 
seize  them  at  this  precise  and  fleeting  moment,  for  it  is 
their  highest  point.  Before  it,  you  have  but  vague  out- 
lines or  dim  presentiments  of  them.  After  it  you  will  have 
only  weakened  reminiscence  or  powerless  regret;  that 
moment  is  the  moment  of  your  ideal. 


A  MIKL'8  JO  URNAL.  •? 

Spite  is  anger  which  is  afraid  to  show  itself,  it  is  an  im- 
potent fury  conscious  of  its  impotence. 


JN"othing  resembles  pride  so  much  as  discouragement. 


To  repel  one's  cross  is  to  make  it  heavier. 


In  the  conduct  of  life,  habits  count  for  more  than  max- 
ims, because  habit  is  a  living  maxim,  becomes  flesh  and 
instinct.  To  reform  one's  maxims  is  nothing:  it  is  but  to 
change  the  title  of  the  book.  To  learn  new  habits  is  every- 
thing, for  it  is  to  reach  the  substance  of  life.  Life  is  but 
a  tissue  of  habits. 


February  17,  1851. — I  have  been  reading,  for  six  or 
seven  hours  without  stopping  the  Pensees  of  Joubert.  I 
felt  at  first  a  very  strong  attraction  toward  the  book,  and 
a  deep  interest  in  it,  but  I  have  already  a  good  deal  cooled 
down.  These  scattered  and  fragmentary  thoughts,  falling 
upon  one  without  a  pause,  like  drops  of  light,  tire,  not  my 
head,  but  reasoning  power.  The  merits  of  Joubert  consist 
in  the  grace  of  the  style,  the  vivacity  or  finesse  of  the  criti- 
cisms, the  charm  of  the  metaphors;  but  he  starts  many 
more  problems  than  he  solves,  he  notices  and  records  more 
than  he  explains.  His  philosophy  is  merely  literary  and 
popular;  his  originality  is  only  in  detail  and  in  execution. 
Altogether,  he  is  a  writer  of  reflections  rather  than  a  phi- 
losopher, a  critic  of  remarkable  gifts,  endowed  with  ex- 
quisite sensibility,  but,  as  an  intelligence,  destitute  of  the 
capacity  for  co-ordination.  He  wants  concentration  and 
continuity.  It  is  not  that  he  has  no  claims  to  be  consid- 
ered a  philosopher  or  an  artist,  but  rather  that  he  is  both 
imperfectly,  for  he  thinks  and  writes  marvelously,  on  a 
small  scale.  He  is  an  entomologist,  a  lapidary,  a  jeweler, 
a  coiner  of  sentences,  of  adages,  of  criticisms,  of  aphorisms, 
counsels,  problems;  and  his  book,  extracted  from  the  ac- 
cnmulations  of  his  journal  during  fifty  years  of  his  life, 
is  a  collection  of  precious  stones,  of  butterflies,  coins  and 


5  AMIKL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

engraved  gems.  The  whole,  however,  is  more  subtle  than 
strong,  more  poetical  than  profound,  and  leaves  upon  the 
reader  rather  the  impression  of  a  great  wealth  of  small 
curiosities  of  value,  than  of  a  great  intellectual  existence 
and  a  new  point  of  view.  The  place  of  Joubert  seems  to 
me  then,  below  and  very  far  from  the  philosophers  and  the 
true  poets,  but  honorable  among  the  moralists  and  the 
critics.  He  is  one  of  those  men  who  are  superior  to  their 
works,  and  who  have  themselves  the  unity  which  these 
lack.  This  first  judgment  is,  besides,  indiscriminate  and 
severe.     I  shall  have  to  modify  it  later. 

February  20th. — I  have  almost  finished  these  two  volumes 
of  Pdnsees  and  the  greater  part  of  the  Correspondance.  This 
last  has  especially  charmed  me ;  it  is  remarkable  for  grace, 
delicacy,  atticism,  and  precision.  The  chapters  on  meta- 
physics and  philosophy  are  the  most  insignificant.  All 
that  has  to  do  with  large  views  with  the  whole  of  things, 
is  very  little  at  Joubert's  command;  he  has  no  philosophy 
of  history,  no  speculative  intuition.  He  is  the  thinker 
of  detail,  and  his  proper  field  is  psychology  and  matters  of 
taste.  In  this  sphere  of  the  subtleties  and  delicacies  of 
imagination  and  feeling,  within  the  circle  of  personal  affec- 
tation and  preoccupations,  of  social  and  educational  inter- 
ests, he  abounds  in  ingenuity  and  sagacity,  in  fine  criti- 
cisms, in  exquisite  touches.  It  is  like  a  bee  going  from 
flower  to  flower,  a  teasing,  plundering,  wayward  zephyr, 
an  ^olian  harp,  a  ray  of  furtive  light  stealing  through  the 
leaves.  Taken  as  a  whole,  there  is  something  impalpable 
and  immaterial  about  him,  which  I  will  not  venture  to  call 
effeminate,  but  which  is  scarcely  manly.  He  wants  bone 
and  body:  timid,  dreamy,  and  clairvoyant,  he  hovers 
far  above  reality.  He  is  rather  a  soul,  a  breath,  than  a 
man.  It  is  the  mind  of  a  woman  in  the  character  of  a 
child,  so  that  we  feel  for  him  less  admiration  than  tender- 
ness and   gratitude. 

February  27,  1851. — Read  over  the  first  book  of  Emile. 
I  was  revolted,  contrary  to  all  expectation,  for  I  opened 
the  book  with  a  sort  of  hunger  for  style  and  beauty.  I  was 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  9 

conscious  instead  of  an  impression  of  heaviness  and  harsh- 
ness, of  labored,  hammering  emphasis,  of  something  vio- 
lent, passionate,  and  obstinate,  without  serenity,  greatness, 
nobility.  Both  the  qualities  and  the  defects  of  the  book 
produced  in  me  a  sense  of  lack  of  good  manners,  a  blaze 
of  talent,  but  no  grace,  no  distinction,  the  accent  of  good 
company  wanting,  I  understood  how  it  is  that  Eousseau 
rouses  a  particular  kind  of  repugnance,  the  repugnance  of 
good  taste,  and  I  felt  the  danger  to  style  involved  in  such 
a  model  as  well  as  the  danger  to  thought  arising  from  a 
truth  so  alloyed  and  sophisticated.  What  there  is  of  true 
and  strong  in  Rousseau  did  not  escape  me,  and  I  still  ad- 
mired him,  but  his  bad  sides  appeared  to  me  with  a  clear- 
ness relatively  new. 

{Same  day.) — The  pensee-writeT  is  to  the  philosopher 
what  the  dilettante  is  to  the  artist.  He  plays  with 
thought,  and  makes  it  produce  a  crowd  of  pretty  things  in 
detail,  but  he  is  more  anxious  about  truths  than  truth, 
and  what  is  essential  in  thought,  its  sequence,  its  unity, 
escapes  him.  He  handles  his  instrument  agreeably,  but  he 
does  not  possess  it,  still  less  does  he  create  it.  He  is  a  gar- 
dener and  not  a  geologist ;  he  cultivates  the  earth  only  so 
much  as  is  necessary  to  make  it  produce  for  him  flowers 
and  fruits ;  he  does  not  dig  deep  enough  into  it  to  under- 
stand it.  In  a  word,  the  pensee-writer  deals  with  what 
is  superficial  and  fragmentary.  He  is  the  literary,  the 
oratorical,  the  talking  or  writing  philosopher ;  whereas  the 
philosopher  is  the  scientific  pens ee- "writer.  The  pensee- 
writers  serve  to  stimulate  or  to  popularize  the  philosophers. 
They  have  thus  a  double  use,  besides  their  charm.  They 
are  the  pioneers  of  the  army  of  readers,  the  doctors  of  the 
crowd,  the  money-changers  of  thought,  which  they  con- 
vert into  current  coin.  The  writer  of  pensee  is  a  man  of 
letters,  though  of  a  serious  type,  and  therefore  he  is 
popular.  The  philosopher  is  a  specialist,  as  far  as  the 
form  of  his  science  goes,  though  not  in  substance,  and 
therefore  he  can  never  become  popular.  In  France,  for 
one    philosopher    (Descartes)    there    have    been    thirty 


10  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

writers  of  pensSes;  in  Germany^  for  ten  8uql;i  writers  ther« 
have  been  twenty  philosophers, 

March  25,  1851. — How  many  illustrious  men  whom  I 
have  known  have  been  already  reaped  by  death,  Steffens, 
Marheineke,  Neander,  Mendelssohn,  Thorwaldsen,  Oelen- 
schlager,  Geijer,  Tegner,  Oersted,  Stuhr,  Lachmaun;  and 
with  us,  Sismondi,  Topffer,  de  Candolle,  savants,  artists, 
poets,  musicians,  histor.ans.  *  The  old  generation  is  going. 
What  will  the  new  bring  us?  What  shall  we  ourselves 
contribute?  A'  few  great  old  men — Schelling,  Alexander 
von  Humboldt,  Schlosser — still  link  us  with  the  glorious 
past.  Who  is  preparing  to  bear  the  weight  of  the  future? 
A ., shiver  seizes  us  when  the  ranks  grow  thin  around 
usi  when  age  is  stealing  upon  us,  when  we  approach  the 
!5^T^ijbt|j,and^  when,  de§ti^y  .g^s  to  us:  "Show  what  is  in 
tnee!""^6w  is'the  moment,  now  is  the  hour,  else  fall  back 
iiit J  nothingness!  ft'ik  thf  tiirnf'  Give  the  world  thy 
iheasiire,  s'ay'tTiy  VoT'd, 'reveal' thy 'nullity 'tW'^  thy  cap^lty. 
Gome  forth  frbni'the  ^Hadef* '  It  'ii  ri&  Ittij^r  li'  qtr^stiori  bi 
promising,  thbli  tt'ti'st  perf drhl'. ' '  The  titae  of  apprertiic/eship 
i^  ov^r.  '  Servan-t,  shdwus'-what 'th6rrr''ha«t  doi^^  with  thy 
taf&t.-'  Speak  rioiv,''br''be''kfletit  forever.**-'" This' ^pM 
6i  the 'conscience  is  a' febleriiii  ^iimnrt6iis"iti  We  lif  e  of  eVefy 
fti'arf,  '^ol^h  airidWftiPBg  thef*truinpet"6f''the  'lastl  jfud^i 
nient?  It  crifes,^-«ATrtiVoif^i^e'ady^  Give'lah  a6bouiit.^"  GW^ 
^'afcc^r^t  of--tlif 'yea^s^;''''t!i-y  Msure,'' tln'^  strend;h,^"elfy 

■'*'0?'ffly^e^arKeteSk^^'N^ind^^;tn"aCyc&tirafinniaa*bee^ 
a^'B*lita  dtirwig  A'tiii^rS  r»^«}e«<ce  tfolpd/i'iTbe'DaniSii  atam^topb^t 
Oetenschiigkc isnd', theK^VBedish i wsitei  Tegnfir  i mste  ainongvtUw Kcan/ 
dizni^ian  n5^nj9J^;letk(r^  \Bi(l)jwJjom)^  ia^cl^:9cqyaii}taBcedji|ring,Uf3 
tp^T  of  ^yvec^enand  Deftrpaj-j^^jn  1845j^,.^P^,pro^abiy,.carCuejacj'Qss  \'H() 
Swedish  liistorian  ueijer  bii  tbe  same  occasion.  Scbellinigarid' Alex- 
arl^^V  voln- Humboldt,  -m'eot'feilfed  a']ittie'iAWfeV'aowS,''\^ere''also  Wtf 
ildldilA^sWay'at'Befflfia  M^ieft  Ke '^^'ri*^&'stud*iit•  ■  Tl^re  fiS- ariiAtereyt^ 
ing  digscitptidn\i3ii  oneu  <(if  liJ3rtfrti(d«s '  van  6«rlih,    pe]}lis}u>r1  ,  inyi  tbt. 

ii^.o£  a^Q,ut,1^4'^,,an4  of  ,^be  ^e^pt^prodtt^ie^  o^.f^JJ^p.^tud^nt's  y^vu^g 
iinegination  ]3y  tlie  sight  of  hal^  the  leaders  of  European  research 
gathered  Ihto  a  single  robn).'  He  saw  ^chlos^e^,   t'&Je  VetefaJi  nfet<> 


AMIEU 8  JOURNAL.  \\ 

studies,  thy  talent,  and  thy  works.     Now  and  here  is  the 
hour  of  great  hearts,  the  hour  of  heroism  and  of  genius." 

April  6,  1851. — Was  there  ever  any  one  so  vulnerable  as 
I?  If  I  were  a  father  how  many  griefs  and  vexations,  a 
child  might  cause  me.  As  a  husband  I  should  have  a  thou- 
sand ways  of  suffering  because  my  happiness  demands  a 
thousand  conditions  I.  have  a.  hea^-t  too  easily  reached,  a 
too  restless  imagination;  despair  is  easy  to  me,  and  every 
sensation  reverberates  again  and  again  within  me.  What 
might  be,  spoils  for  me  what  is.  What  ought  to  be  con- 
sumes me  with  sadness.  So  the  reality,  the  present,  the 
irreparable,  the  necessary,  repel  and  even  terrify  me.  I 
have  too  much  imagination,  conscience  and  penetration^ 
and  not  enough  character.  The  life  of  thought  alone  seemr 
to  me  to  have  enough  elasticity  and  immensity,  to  be  free. 
enough  from  the  irreparable;  practical  life  makes  me- 
f  if  raid. 

And  yet,  at  the  same  time  it  attracts  me ;  I  have  need  of  it.. 
Family  life,  especially,  in  all  its  deiightfulness,  in  all  its 
moral  depth,  appeals  to  me  almost  like  a  duty.  Some- 
times I  cannot  escape  from  the  ideal  of  it.  A  companion! 
of  my  life,  of  my  work,  of  my  thoughts,  of  my  hopes  ^ 
within,  a  common  worship,  toward  the  world  outside,, 
kindness  and  beneficence;  educations  to  undertake,,  the- 
thousand  and  one  moral  relations  which  develop  round 
the  first,  all  these  ideas  intoxicate  me  sometimes.  But  I 
put  them  aside  because  every  hope  is,,  as  it  were,  an  egg 
Avhence  a  serpent  may  issue  instead  of  a  dove,  b^ause 
every  joy  missed  is  a  stab ;  because  every  seed;  confided  to 
destiny  contains  an  ear  of  grief  which  the  future  ma;s 
develop. 

I  am  distrustful  of  myself  and  of  happiness  because  ]' 
know  myself.  The  ideal  poisons  for  me  all  imperfect  pos- 
session. Everything  which  compromises  the  future  or 
destroys  my  inner  liberty,  which  enslaves  me-  to  things  or 
obliges  me  to  be  other  than  I  could  and  ought  to  be,  all. 
which  injures  my  idea  of  the  perfect  man,  hurts  me  mor- 
tally,  degrades  and  wounds  mo    in    mind,   even   befora- 


12  AMIEDS  JOURNAL. 

hand.  I  abhor  useless  regrets  and  repentances.  The 
fataUty  of  the  consequences  which  follow  upon  every  hu- 
man act,  the  leading  idea  of  dramatic  art  and  the  most 
tragic  element  of  life,  arrests  me  more  certainly  than  the 
arm  of  the  Commandeur.  I  only  act  with  regret,  and  almost 
by  force. 

To  be  dependent  is  to  me  terrible;  but  to  depend  upon 
what  is  irreparable,  arbitrary  and  unforeseen,  and  above 
all  to  be  so  dependent  by  my  fault  and  through  my  own 
error,  to  ^ive  up  liberty  and  hope,  to  slay  sleep  and  hap- 
piness, this  would  be  hell ! 

All  that  is  necessary,  providential,  in  short,  ujiimputable, 
I  could  bear,  1  think,  with  some  strength  of  mind.  But 
responsiblity  mortally  envenoms  grief;  and  as  an  act  is 
essentially  voluntary,  therefore  I  act  as  little  as  possible. 

Last  outbreak  of  a  rebellious  and  deceitful  self-will,  crav- 
ing for  repose  for  satisfaction,  for  independence!  is  there 
hot  some  relic  of  selfishness  in  such  a  disinterestedness, 
such  a  fear,  such  idle  susceptibility. 

I  wish  to  futtill  my  duty,  but  where  is  it,  what  is  it? 
Here  inclination  comes  in  again  and  interprets  the  oracle. 
And  the  ultimate  question  is  this:  Does  duty  consist  in 
obeying  one's  nature,  even  the  best  and  most  spiritual?  or 
in  conquering  it? 

Life,  is  i-t  essentially  the  education  of  the  mind  and 
intelligence,  or  that  of  the  will?  And  does  will  show 
itself  in  strength  or  in  resignation?  If  the  aim  of  life  is  to 
teach  us  renunciation,  then  welcome  sickness,  hindrances, 
Bufferings  of  every  kind !  But  if  its  aim  is  to  produce  the 
perfect  man,  then  one  must  watch  over  one's  integrity  of 
mind  and  body.  To  court  trial  is  to  tempt  God.  At 
bottom,  the  God  of  justice  veils  from  me  the  God  of  love. 
I  tremble  instead  of  trusting. 

Whenever  conscience  speaks  with  a  divided,  uncertain, 
and  disputed  voice,  it  is  not  yet  the  voice  of  God.  De- 
scend still  deeper  into  yourself,  until  you  hear  nothing  but 
a  clear  and  undivided  voice,  a  voice  which  does  away  with 
doubt  and  brings  with  it  persuasion,  light  and  serenity. 
Happy,  says  the  apostle,  are  they  who  are  at  peace  with 


AMIKVS  JOURNAL.  la 

themselves,  and  whose  heart  condemneth  them  not  in  the 
part  they  take.  This  inner  identity,  this  unity  of  convic- 
tion, is  all  the  more  difficult  the  more  the  mind  analyzes, 
discriminates,  and  foresees.  It  is  difficult,  indeed,  for 
liberty  to  return  to  the  frank  unity  of  instinct. 

Alas !  we  must  then  re-climb  a  thousand  times  the  peaks 
already  scaled,  and  reconquer  the  points  of  view  already 
won,  we  mvi^t  fight  the  fight!  The  human  heart,  like 
kings,  signs  mere  truces  under  a  pretence  of  perpetual 
peace.  The  eternal  life  is  eternally  to  be  re-won.  Alas, 
yes !  peace  itself  is  a  struggle,  or  rather  it  is  struggle  and 
activity  which  are  the  law.  We  only  find  rest  in  effort, 
as  the  flame  only  finds  existence  in  combustion.  0  Hera- 
clitus!  the  symbol  of  happiness  is  after  all  the  same  as 
that  of  grief;  anxiety  and  hope,  hell  and  heaven,  are 
equally  res-tless.  The  altar  of  Vesta  and  the  sacrifice  of 
Beelzebub  burn  with  the  same  fire.  Ah,  yes,  there  yon 
have  life — life  double-faced  and  double-edged.  The  fire 
which  enlightens  is  also  the  fire  which  consumes;  th« 
element  of  the  gods  may  become  that  of  the  accursed. 

April  7,  1851. — Read  a  part  of  Euge's*  volume  "Z^te 
Academie"  (1848)  where  the  humanism  of  the  neo-Hegel- 
ians  in  politics,  religion,  and  literature  is  represented  by 
correspondents  or  articles  (Kuno  Fischer,  Kollach,  etc). 
They  recall  the  philosophist  party  of  the  last  century,  able 
to  dissolve  anything  by  reason  and  reasoning,  but  unable  to 
construct  anything ;  for  construction  rests  upon  feeling, 
instinct,  and  will.  One  finds  them  mistaking  philosophic 
consciousness  for  realizing  power,  the  redemption  of  the 
intelligence  for  the  redemption  of  the  heart,  that  is  to  say, 
the  part  for  the  whole.  These  papers  make  me  understand 
the  radical  difference  between  morals  and  intellectualism. 
The  writers  of  them  wish  to  supplant  religion  by  philos- 
ophy.    Man  is  the  principle  of  their  religion,  and  intellect 

*  Arnold  Ruge,  born  in  1803,  died  at  Brigbton  in  1880,  principal 
editor  of  the  Hcdlische,  afterward  the  Deutsche  Jahrbucher  (1838-43), 
in  which  Strauss,  Bruno  Bauer,  and  Louis  Feuerbach  wrote.  H« 
was  a  member  of  the  parliament  of  Franlifort. 


14  AMIRh'8  JOURNAL. 

is  the  climax  of  man.  Their  religion,  then,  is  the  religion 
©f  intellect.  There  you  have  the  two  worlds:  Christianity 
brings  and  preaches  salvation  by  the  conversion  of  the  will, 
humanism  by  the  emancipation  of  the  mind.  One  attacks 
the  heart,  the  other  the  brain.  Both  wish  to  enable  man 
to  reach  his  ideal.  But  the  ideal  differs,  if  not  by  its  con- 
tent, at  least  by  the  disposition  of  its  content,  by  the  pre- 
dominance and  sovereignity  given  to  this  for  that  inner 
power.  For  one,  the  mind  is  the  organ  of  the  soul;  for 
the  other,  the  soul  is  an  inferior  state  of  the  mind;  the 
one  wishes  to  enlighten  by  making  better,  the  other  to 
make  better  by  enlightening.  It  is  the  difference  between 
Socrates  and  Jesus. 

The  cardinal  question  is  that  of  sin.  The  question  of 
immanence  or  of  dualism  is  secondary.  The  trinity,  the 
life  to  come,  paradise  and  hell,  may  cease  to  be  dogmas,  and 
spiritual  realities,  the  form  and  the  letter  may  vanish  away, 
the  question  of  humanity  remains:  What  is  it  which  saves? 
How  can  man  be  led  to  be  truly  man?  Is  the  ultimate 
root  of  his  being  responsibility,  yes  or  no?  And  is  doing 
or  knowing  the  right,  acting  or  thinking,  his  ultimate  end? 
If  science  does  not  produce  love  it  is  insufficient.  Now  all 
that  science  gives  is  the  amor  intellectualis  of  Spinoza,  light 
without  warmth,  a  resignation  which  is  contemplative  and 
grandiose,  but  inhuman,  because  it  is  scarcely  transmissi- 
ble and  remains  a  privilege,  one  of  the  rarest  of  all.  Moral 
love  places  the  center  of  the  individual  in  the  center  of 
being.  It  has  at  least  salvation  in  principle,  the  germ  of 
eternal  life.  To  love  is  virtually  to  know;  to  knoiv  is  not 
virtually  to  love;  there  you  have  the  relation  of  these  two 
modes  of  man.  The  redemption  wrought  by  science  or 
by  intellectual  love  is  then  inferior  to  the  redemption 
wrought  by  will  or  by  moral  love.  The  first  may  free  a 
man  from  himself,  it  may  enfranchise  him  from  egotism. 
The  second  drives  the  ego  out  of  itself,  makes  it  active  and 
fruitful.  The  one  is  critical,  purifying,  negative;  the 
other  is  vivifying,  fertilizing,  positive.  Science,  however 
spiritual  and  substantial  it  may  be  in  itself,  is  still  formal 


AMIEUS  JO  URN  A  L.  15 

relatively  to  love.  Moral  force  is  then  the  vital  point. 
And  this  force  is  only  produced  by  moral  force.  Like 
alone  acts  upon  like.  Therefore  do  not  amend  by  reason- 
ing, but  by  example ;  approach  feeling  by  feeling ;  do  not 
hope  to  excite  love  except  by  love.  Be  what  you  wish 
others  to  become.  Let  yourself  and  not  your  words 
preach  for  you. 

Philosophy,  then,  to  return  to  the  subject,  can  never 
replace  religion ;  revolutionaries  are  not  apostles,  although 
the  apostles  may  have  been  revolutionaries.  To  save 
from  the  outside  to  the  inside — and  by  the  outside  I  un- 
derstand also  the  intelligence  relatively  to  tlie  will — is  an 
error  and  danger.  The  negative  part  of  the  humanist's 
work  is  good;  it  will  strip  Christianity  of  an  outer  shell, 
which  has  become  superfluous;  but  Euge  andFeuerbach 
cannot  save  humanity.  She  must  have  her  saints  and 
her  heroes  to  complete  the  work  of  her  philosophers. 
Science  is  the  power  of  man,  and  love  his  strength;  man 
becomes  man  only  by  the  intelligence,  but  he  is  man  only 
by  the  heart.  Knowledge,  love,  power — there  is  the  com- 
plete life. 

June  16,  1851. — This  evening  I  walked  np  and  down 
on  the  Pont  des  Bergues,  under  a  clear,  moonless  heaven 
delighting  in  the  freshness  of  the  water,  streaked  with 
light  from  the  two  quays,  and  glimmering  under  the 
twinkling  stars.  Meeting  all  these  different  groups  of  youag 
people,  families,  couples  and  children,  who  were  returning  to 
their  homes,  to  their  garrets  or  their  drawing-rooms,  singing 
or  talking  as  they  went,  I  felt  a  movement  of  sympathy  for  all 
these  passers-by;  my  eyes  and  ears  became  those  of  a  poet  or 
a  painter;  while  even  one's  mere  kindly  curiosity  seems  to 
bring  with  it  a  joy  in  living  and  in  seeing  others  live. 

August  15,  1851. — To  know  how  to  be  ready,  a  great 
thing,  a  precious  gift,  and  one  that  implies  calculation, 
grasp  and  decision.  To  be  always  ready  a  man  must  be^ 
able  to  cut' a  knot,  for  everything  cannot  be  untied;  he 
must  know  how  to  disengage  what  is  essential  from  the 
detail  in  which  it  is  enwrapped,  for  everything  cannot  be 


16  AMTEL'S  JOURNAL. 

equally  considered;  in  a  word,  he  mnst  be  able  to  simplify 
his  duties,  his  business,  and  his  life.  To  know  how  to 
be  ready,  is  to  know  how  to  start. 

It  is  astonishing  how  all  of  us  are  generally  cumbered  up 
with  the  thousand  and  one  hindrances  and  duties  which 
are  not  such,  but  which  nevertheless  wind  us  about  with 
their  spider  threads  and  fetter  the  movement  of  our  wings. 
It  is  the  lack  of  order  which  makes  us  slaves;  the  confu- 
sion of  to-day  discounts  the  freedom  of  to-morrow. 

Confusion  is  the  enemy  of  all  comfort,  and  confusion  is 
born  of  procrastination.  To  know  how  to  be  ready  we 
must  be  able  to  finish.  Nothing  is  done  but  what  is  fin- 
ished. The  things  which  we  leave  dragging  behind  us 
will  start  up  again  later  on  before  us  and  harass  our  path. 
Let  each  day  take  thought  for  what  concerns  it,  liquidate 
its  own  affairs  and  respect  the  day  which  is  to  follow,  and 
then  we  shall  be  always  ready.  To  know  how  to  be  ready 
is  at  bottom  to  know  how  to  die. 

September  2,  1851. — Eead  the  work  of  Tocqueville("/)e 
la  Democrati  en  Ameriqut")  My  impression  is  as  yet  a 
mixed  one.  A  fine  book,  but  I  feel  in  it  a  little  too  much 
imitation  of  Montesquieu.  This  abstract,  piquant,  sen- 
tentious style,  too,  is  a  little  dry,  over-refined  and  mo- 
notonous. It  has  too  much  cleverness  and  not  enough 
imagination.  It  makes  one  think,  more  than  it  charms, 
and  though  really  serious,  it  seems  flippant.  His  method 
of  splitting  up  a  thought,  of  illuminating  a  subject  by  suc- 
cessive facets,  has  serious  inconveniences.  We  see  the 
details  too  clearly,  to  the  detriment  of  the  whole.  A  mul- 
titude of  sparks  gives  but  a  poor  light.  Nevertheless,  the 
author  is  evidently  a  ripe  and  penetrating  intelligence,  who 
takes  a  comprehensive  view  of  his  subject,  while  at  the 
same  time  possessing  a  power  of  acute  and  exhaustive 
analysis. 

September  6th. — Tocqueville's  book  has  on  the  whole  a 
calming  effect  upon  the  mind,  but  it  leaves  a  certain  sense 
of  disgust  behind.  It  makes  one  realize  the  necessity  of 
what  is  happening  around  us  and  the  inevitableness  of  tlv* 


AM lEL'S  JOURNAL.  1? 

goal  prepared  for  us;  but  it  also  makes  it  plain  that  the  era 
of  mediocrity  in  everything  is  beginning,  and  n»ediocrity 
freezes  all  desire.  Equality  engenders  uniformity,  and  it 
is  by  sacrificing  what  is  excellent,  remarkable,  and  extra- 
ordinary that  we  get  rid  of  what  is  bad.  The  whole  be- 
comes less  barbarous,  and  at  the  same  time  more  vulgar. 

The  age  of  great  men  is  going;  the  epoch  of  the  ant-hill, 
of  life  in  multiplicity,  is  beginning.  Tbe  century  of  indi- 
vidualism, if  abstract  equality  triumphs,  runs  a  great  risk 
of  seeing  no  more  true  individuals.  By  continual  leveling 
and  division  of  labor,  society  will  become  everything  and 
man  nothing. 

As  the  floor  of  valleys  is  raised  by  the  denudation  and 
washing  down  of  the  mountains,  what  is  average  will  rise 
at  the  expense  of  what  is  great.  The  exceptional  will 
disappear.  A  plateau  with  fewer  and  fewer  undulations, 
without  contrasts  and  without  oppositions,  such  will  be 
the  aspect  of  human  society.  The  statistician  will  register 
a  growing  progress,  and  the  moralist  a  gradual  decline:  on 
the  one  hand,  a  progress  of  things;  on  the  other,  a  de- 
cline of  souls.  The  useful  will  take  the  place  of  the  beau- 
tiful, industry  of  art,  political  economy  of  religion,  and 
arithmetic  of  poetry.  The  spleen  will  become  the  malady 
of  a  leveling  age. 

Is  this  indeed  the  fate  reserved  for  the  democratic  era? 
May  not  the  general  well-being  be  purchased  too  dearly  at 
such  a  price?  The  creative  force  which  in  the  beginning 
we  see  forever  tending  to  produce  and  multiply  differences, 
will  it  afterward  retrace  its  steps  and  obliterate  them  one 
by  one?  And  equality,  which  in  the  dawn  of  existence  is 
mere  inertia,  torpor,  and  death,  is  it  to  become  at  last  the 
natural  form  of  life?  Or  rather,  above  the  economic  and 
political  equality  to  which  the  socialist  and  non-socialist 
democracy  aspires,  taking  it  too  often  for  the  term  of  its 
efforts,  will  there  not  arise  a  new  kingdom  of  mind,  a 
church  of  refuge,  a  republic  of  souls,  in  which,  far  beyond 
the  region  of  mere  right  and  sordid  utility,  beauty,  devo- 
tion, holiness,  heroism,  enthusiasm,  the  extraordinary,  the 


18  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

infinite,  shall  have  a  worship  and  an  abiding  city?  Utili' 
tarian  materialism,  barren  well-being,  the  idolatry  of  the 
flesh  and  of  the  "I,"  of  the  temporal  and  of  mammon, 
are  they  to  be  the  goal  if  our  efforts,  the  final  recompense 
promised  to  the  labors  of  our  race?  I  do  not  believe  it. 
The  ideal  of  humanity  is  something  different  and  higher. 

But  the  animal  in  us  must  be  satisfied  first,  and  we  must 
first  banish  from  among  us  all  suffering  which  is  superfluous 
and  has  its  origin  in  social  arrangements,  before  we  can 
return  to  spiritual  goods. 

September  7,  1851.  {Aix). — It  is  ten  o'clock  at  night. 
A  strange  and  mystic  moonlight,  with  a  fresh  breeze  and 
a  sky  crossed  by  a  few  wandering  clouds,  makes  our 
terrace  delightful.  These  pale  and  gentle  rays  shed  from 
the  zenith  a  subdued  and  penetrating  peace;  it  is  like  the 
calm  joy  or  the  pensive  smile  of  experience,  combined  with 
a,  certain  stoic  strength.  The  stars  shine,  the  leaves  trem- 
ble in  the  silver  light.  Not  a  sound  in  all  the  landscape; 
great  gulfs  of  shadow  under  the  green  alleys  and  at  the 
corners  of  the  steps.  Everything  is  secret,  solemn,  mys- 
terious. 

0  night  hours,  hours  of  silence  and  solitude !  with  you 
are  grace  and  melancholy ;  you  sadden  and  you  console. 
You  speak  to  us  of  all  that  has  passed  away,  and  of  all  that 
must  still  die,  but  you  say  to  us,  "courage  !"  and  you 
promise  us  rest. 

November  9,  1851.  (Sunday).— At  the  church  of  St. 
Gervais,  a  second  sermon  from  Adolphe  Monod,  less  gran- 
diose perhaps  but  almost  more  original,  and  to  me  more 
edifying  than  that  of  last  Sunday.  The  subject  was  St. 
Paul  or  the  active  life,  his  former  one  having  been  St. 
John  or  the  inner  life,  of  the  Christian.  I  felt  the  golden 
spell  of  eloquence :  I  found  myself  hanging  on  the  lips  of 
the  orator,  fascinated  by  his  boldness,  his  grace,  his  energy, 
and  his  art,  his  sincerity,  and  his  talent;  and  it  was  borne 
in  upon  me  that  for  some  men  difficulties  are  a  source  of 
inspiration,  so  that  what  would  make  others  stumble  is 
for  them  the  occasioQ  of  their  highest  tviumphs,     He  made 


A  MIEVS  JO  URNAL.  19 

St.  Paul  cry  during  an  hour  and  a  half;  he  made  an  old 
nurse  of  him,  he  hunted  up  his  old  cloak,  his  prescriptions 
of  water  and  wine  to  Timothy,  the  canvas  that  he  mended, 
his  friend  Tychicus,  in  short,  all  that  could  raise  a  smile; 
and  from  it  he  drew  the  most  unfailing  pathos,  the  most 
austere  and  penetrating  lessons.  He  made  the  whole  St. 
Paul,  martyr,  apostle  and  man,  his  grief,  his  charities, 
his  tenderness,  live  again  before  us,  and  this  with  a  gran- 
deur, an  unction,  a  warmth  of  reality,  such  as  I  had  never 
seen  equaled. 

How  stirring  is  such  an  apotheosis  of  pain  in  our  century 
of  comfort,  when  shepherds  and  sheep  alike  sink  benumbed 
in  Capuan  languors,  such  an  apotheosis  of  ardent  charity  in 
a  time  of  coldness  and  indifference  toward  souls,  such  an 
apotheosis  of  a  liuman^  natural,  inbred  Christianity,  in  an 
age,  when  some  put  it,  so  to  speak,  above  man,  and  others 
below  man !  Finally,  as  a  peroration,  he  dwelt  upon  the 
necessity  for  a  new  people,  for  a  stronger  generation,  if  the 
world  is  to  be  saved  from  the  tempests  which  threaten  it. 
"  People  of  God,  awake !  Sow  in  tears,  that  ye  may  reap  in 
triumph!"  What  a  study  is  such  a  sermon!  I  felt  all  the 
extraordinary  literary  skill  of  it,  while  my  eyes  were  still 
dim  with  tears.  Diction,  composition,  similes,  all  is  in- 
structive and  precious  to  remember.  I  was  astonished, 
shaken,  taken  hold  of. 

November  18,  1851. — The  energetic  subjectivity,  which 
has  faith  in  itself,  which  does  not  fear  to  be  something 
particular  and  definite  without  any  consciousness  or  shame 
of  its  subjective  illusion,  is  unknown  to  me.  I  am,  so  far 
as  the  intellectual  order  is  concerned,  essentially  objective, 
and  my  distinctive  speciality,  is  to  be  able  to  place  myself 
in  all  points  of  view,  to  see  through  all  eyes,  to  emancipate 
myself,  that  is  to  say,  from  the  individual  prison.  Hence 
aptitude  for  theory  and  irresolution  in  practice;  hence 
critical  talent  and  difficulty  in  spontaneous  production. 
Hence,  also,  a  continuous  uncertainty  of  conviction  and 
opinion,  so  long  as  my  aptitude  remained  mere  instinct; 
but  now  that  it  is  conscious  and  possesses  itself,  it  is  able 


20  A MIEL'S  JO  URNAL. 

to  conclude  and  affirm  in  its  turn,  so  that,  after  having 
brought  disquiet,  it  now  brings  peace.  It  says:  "  There  ia 
no  repose  for  the  mind  except  in  the  absolute;  for  feeling, 
except  in  the  infinite;  for  the  soul,  except  in  the  divine." 
Nothing  finite  is  true,  is  interesting,  or  worthy  to  fix  my 
attention.  All  that  is  particular  is  exclusive,  and  all  that 
is  exclusive,  repels  me.  There  is  nothing  non-exclusive 
but  the  All ;  my  end  is  communion  with  Being  through 
the  whole  of  Being.  Then,  in  the  light  of  the  absolute, 
every  idea  becomes  worth  studying;  in  that  of  the  infinite, 
every  existence  worth  respecting;  in  that  of  the  divine, 
every  creature  worth  loving. 

December  2,  1851. — Let  mystery  have  its  place  in  you; 
do  not  be  always  turning  up  your  whole  soil  with  the 
plowshare  of  self-examination,  but  leave  a  little  fallow 
corner  in  your  heart  ready  for  any  seed  the  winds  may 
bring,  and  reserve  a  nook  of  shadow  for  the  passing  bird ; 
keep  a  place  in  your  heart  for  the  unexpected  guests,  an 
altar  for  the  unknown  God.  Then  if  a  bird  sing  among 
your  branches,  do  not  be  too  eager  to  tame  it.  If  you  are 
conscious  of  something  new — thought  or  feeling,  wakening 
in  the  depths  of  your  being — do  not  be  in  a  hurry  to  let 
in  light  upon  it,  to  look  at  it;  let  the  springing  germ  have 
the  protection  of  being  forgotten,  hedge  it  round  with 
quiet,  and  do  not  break  in  upon  its  darkness;  let  it  take 
shape  and  grow,  and  not  a  word  of  your  happiness  to 
any  one !  Sacred  work  of  nature  as  it  is,  all  conception 
should  be  enwrapped  by  the  triple  veil  of  modesty,  silence 
and  night. 


Kindness  is  the  principle  of  tact,  and  respect  for  others 
the  first  condition  of  savoir-vivre. 


He  who  is  silent  is  forgotten ;  he  who  abstains  is  taken 
at  his  word;  he  who  does  not  advance,  falls  back;  he  who 
stops  is  overwhelmed,  distanced,  crushed;  he  who  ceases 
to  grow  greater  becomes  smaller;  he  who  leaves  off,  giveb 
up ;'  the  stationary  condition  is  the  beginning  of  the  end-  -• 


A  MIEL'8  JO  URN  A  L.  21 

it  is  the  terrible  symptom  which  precedes  death.  To  live, 
is  to  achieve  a  perpetual  triumph;  it  is  to  assert  one's  self 
against  destruction,  against  sickness,  against  the  annulling 
and  dispersion  of  one's  physical  ^nd  moral  being.  It  is  to 
will  without  ceasing,  or  rather  to  refresh  one's  will  day  by 
day. 

It  is  not  history  which  teaches  conscience  to  be  honest; 
it  is  the  conscience  which  educates  history.  Fact  is  cor- 
rupting, it  is  we  who  correct  it  by  the  persistence  of  our 
ideal.  The  soul  moralizes  the  past  in  order  not  to  be  de- 
moralized by  it.  Like  the  alchemists  of  the  middle  ages,  she 
finds  in  the  crucible  of  experience  only  the  gold  that  she 
herself  has  poured  into  it. 


\ 


February  1,  1852.  (Sunday). — Passed  the  afternoon  in 
reading  the  Monologues  of  Schleiermacher.  This  little 
book  made  an  impression  on  me  almost  as  deep  as  it  did 
twelve  years  ago,  when  I  read  it  for  the  first  time.  It 
replunged  me  into  the  inner  world,  to  which  I  return 
with  Joy  whenever  I  may  have  forsaken  it.  I  was  able 
besides,  to  measure  my  progress  since  then  by  the  trans- 
parency of  all  the  thoughts  to  me,  and  by  the  freedom  with 
which  I  entered  into  and  judged  the  point  of  view. 

It  is  great,  powerful,profound,  but  there  is  still  pride  in 
it,  and  even  selfishness.  For  the  center  of  the  universe  is 
still  the  self,  the  great  Ich  of  Fichte.  The  tameless  lib- 
erty, the  divine  dignity  of  the  individual  spirit,  expanding 
till  it  admits  neither  any  limit  nor  anything  foreign  to 
itself,  and  conscious  of  a  strength  instinct  with  creative 
force,  such  is  the  point  of  view  of  the  Monologues. 

The  inner  life  in  its  enfranchisement  from  time,  in  its 
double  end,  the  realization  of  the  species  and  of  the  indi- 
viduality, in  its  proud  dominion  over  all  hostile  circum- 
stances, in  its  prophetic  certainty  of  the  future,  in  its 
immortal  youth,  such  is  their  theme.  Through  them  we 
are  enabled  to  enter  into  a  life  of  monumental  interest, 
wholly  original  and  beyond  the  influence  of  anything  ex- 


22  AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL. 

terior,  an  astonishing  example  of  the  autonomy  of  the  ego^ 
an  imposing  type  of  character,  Zeno  and  Fichte  in  one. 
But  still  the  motive  power  of  this  life  is  not  religious;  it  is 
rather  moral  and  philosophic.  I  see  in  it  not  so  much  a 
magnificent  model  to  imitate  as  a  precious  subject  of  study. 
This  ideal  of  a  liberty,  absolute,  indefeasible,  inviolably 
respecting  itself  above  all,  disdaining  the  visible  ani 
the  universe,  and  developing  itself  after  its  own  laws  alone, 
is  also  the  ideal  of  Emerson,  the  stoic  of  a  young  America. 
According  to  it,  man  finds  his  joy  in  himself,  and,  safe  in 
the  inaccessible  sanctuary,  of  his  personal  consciousness, 
becomes  almost  a  god.*  He  is  himself  principle,  motive, 
and  end  of  his  own  destiny;  he  is  himself,  and  that  is 
enough  for  him.  This  superb  triumph  of  life  is  not  far 
from  being  a  sort  of  impiety,  or  at  least  a  displacement  of 
adoration.  By  the  mere  fact  that  it  does  away  with  hu- 
mility, such  a  superhuman  point  of  view  becomes  danger- 
ous; it  is  the  very  temptation  to  which  the  first  man 
succumbed,  that  of  becoming  his  own  master  by  becoming 
like  unto  the  Elohim.  Here  then  the  heroism  of  the  phi- 
losopher approaches  temerity,  and  the  Monologues  are  there- 
fore open  to  three  reproaches: 

Ontologically,  the  position  of  man  in  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse is  wrongly  indicated;  the  individual  soul,  not  being 
unique  and  not  springing  from  itself,  can  it  be  conceived 
without  God?  Psychologically,  the  force  of  spontaneity  in 
the  ego  is  allowed  a  dominion  too  exclusive  of  any  other. 
As  a  fact,  it  is  not  everything  in  man.  Morally,  evil  is 
scarcely  named,  and  conflict,  the  condition  of  true  peace, 
is  left  out  of  count.  So  that  the  peace  described  in  the! 
Motiologues  is  neither  a  conquest  by  man  nor  a  grace  from 
heaven ;  it  is  rather  a  stroke  of  good  fortune. 

*  Compare  Clougb's  lines  : 

"  Where  are  the  great,  whom  thou  would'st  wish  to  praise  thee? 
Where  are  the  pure,  whom  thou  would'st  choose  to  love  thee  ? 
Where  are  the  brave,  to  stand  supreme  above  thee  ? 
Whose  high  commands  would  cheer,  whose  chidings  raise  theet 
Seek,  seeker,  in  thyself  ;  submit  to  find 
In  the  stones,  bread,  and  life  iu  the  blank  mind." 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  23 

February  2d. — Still  the  Monologues.  Critically  I  de- 
feuded  myself  enough  against  them  yesterday ;  I  may  aban- 
don myself  now,  without  scruple  and  without  danger,  to  the 
admiration  and  the  sympathy  with  which  they  inspire  me. 
This  life  so  proudly  independent,  this  sovereign  concep- 
tion of  human  dignity,  this  actual  possession  of  the  uni- 
verse and  the  infinite,  this  perfect  emancipation  from  all 
which  passes,  this  calm  sense  of  strength  and  superiority, 
this  invincible  energy  of  will,  this  infallible  clearness  of  self- 
vision,  this  autocracy  of  the  consciousness  which  is  its  own 
master,  all  these  decisive  marks  of  a  royal  personality  of 
a  nature  Olympian,  profound,  complete,  harmonious,  pene- 
trate the  mind  with  joy  and  heart  with  gratitude.  What  a 
life !  what  a  man !  These  glimpses  into  the  inner  regions 
of  a  great  soul  do  one  good.  Contact  of  this  kind  strength- 
ens, restores,  refreshes.  Courage  returns  as  we  gaze; 
when  we  see  what  has  been,  we  doubt  no  more  that  it  can 
be  again.  At  the  sight  of  a  man  we  too  say  to  ourselves, 
let  us  also  be  men. 

March  3,  1852. — Opinion  has  its  value  and  even  its 
power :  to  have  it  against  us  is  painful  when  we  are  among 
friends,  and  harmful  in  the  case  of  the  outer  world.  We 
should  neither  flatter  opinion  nor  court  it;  but  it  is  better,  if 
we  can  help  it,  not  to  throw  it  on  to  a  false  scent.  The 
first  error  is  a  meanness ;  the  second  an  imprudence.  We 
should  be  ashamed  of  the  one;  we  may  regret  the  other. 
Look  to  yourself;  you  are  much  given  to  this  last  fault, 
and.  it  has  already  done  you  great  harm.  Be  ready  to  bend 
your  pride;  abase  yourself  even  so  far  as  to  show  yourself 
ready  and  clever  like  others.  This  world  of  skillful  ego- 
tisms and  active  ambitions,  this  world  of  men,  in  which 
one  must  deceive  by  smileS,  conduct,  and  silence  as  much 
as  by  actual  words,  a  world  revolting  to  the  proud  and  up- 
right soul,  it  is  our  business  to  learn  to  live  in  it!  Suc- 
cess is  required  in  it:  succeed.  Only  force  is  recognized 
there:  be  strong.  Opinion  seeks  to  impose  her  law  upon 
all,  instead  of  setting  her  at  defiance,  it  would  be  better  to 
struggle  with  her  and  conquer.    ...     I  understand  the 


24  A  MIEUS  JO  URNAL. 

indignation  of  contempt,  and  the  wish  to  cmsh,  ronseii 
irresistibl}'  by  all  that  creeps,  all  that  is  tortuous,  oblique, 

ignoble But  I   cannot  maintain  such    a 

mood,  which  is  a  mood  of  vengeance,  for  long.  This 
world  is  a  world  of  men,  and  these  men  are  our  brothers. 
We  must  not  banish  from  us  the  divine  breath,  we  must 
love.  Evil  must  be  conquered  by  good;  and  before  all 
things  one  must  keep  a  pure  conscience.  Prudence  may 
be  preached  from  this  point  of  view  too.  "  Be  ye  simple 
as  the  dove  and  prudent  as  the  serpent,"  are  the  words  of 
Jesus.  Be  careful  of  your  reputation,  not  through  vanity, 
but  that  you  may  not  harm  your  life's  work,  and  out 
of  love  for  truth.  There  is  still  something  of  self-seeking 
in  the  refined  disinterestedness  which  will  not  justify  itself, 
that  it  may  feel  itself  superior  to  opinion.  It  requires 
ability,  to  make  what  we  seem  agree  with  what  we  are, 
and  humility,  to  feel  that  we  are  no  great  things. 

There,  thanks  to  this  journal,  my  excitement  has  passed 
away.  I  have  just  read  the  last  book  of  it  through  again, 
and  the  morning  has  passed  by.  On  the  way  I  have  been 
conscious  of  a  certain  amount  of  monotony.  It  does  not 
signify !  These  pages  ure  not  written  to  be  read ;  they  are 
written  for  my  own  consolation  and  warning.  They  are 
landmarks  in  my  past;  and  some  of  the  landmarks  are 
funeral  crosses,  stone  pyramids,  withered  stalks  grown 
green  again,  white  pebbles,  coins — all  of  them  helpful 
toward  finding  one's  way  again  through  the  Elysian  fields 
of  the  soul.  The  pilgrim  has  marked  his  stages  in  it;  he 
is  able  to  trace  by  it  his  thoughts,  his  tears,  his  joys.  This 
is  my  traveling  diary:  if  some  passages  from  it  may  be 
useful  to  others,  and  if  sometimes  even  I  have  communi- 
cated such  passages  to  the  public,  these  thousand  pages  as 
a  whole  are  only  of  value  to  me  and  to  those  who,  after 
me,  may  take  some  interest  in  the  itinerary  of  an  obscurely 
conditioned  soul,  far  from  the  world's  noise  and  fame. 
These  sheets  will  be  monotonous  when  my  life  is  so;  they 
will  repeat  themselves  when  feelings  repeat  themselves; 
truth  at  any  rate  will  be  always  there,  and  truth  is  their 
only  muse,  their  only  pretext,  their  only  duty. 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.  25 

April  2,  1852. — What  a  lovely  walk!  Sky  clear,  sun 
rising,  all  the  tints  bright,  all  the  outlines  sharp,  save  for 
the  soft  and  misty  infinite  of  the  lake.  A  pinch  of  white 
frost,  powdered  the  fields,  lending  a  metallic  relief  to  the 
hedges  of  green  box,  and  to  the  whole  landscape,  still 
without  leaves,  an  air  of  health  and  vigor,  of  youth  and 
freshness.  "Bathe,  0  disciple,  thy  thirsty  soul  in  the 
dew  of  the  dawn !  "  says  Faust,  to  us,  and  he  is  right.  The 
morning  air  breathes  a  new  and  laughing  energy  into  veins 
and  marrow.  If  every  day  is  a  repetition  of  life,  every 
dawn  gives  signs  as  it  were  a  new  contract  with-  existence. 
At  dawn  everything  is  fresh,  light,  simple,  as  it  is  for  chil- 
dren. At  dawn  spiritual  truth,  like  the  atmosphere,  is 
more  transparent,  and  our  organs,  like  the  young  leaves, 
drink  in  the  light  more  eagerly,  breathe  in  more  ether,  and 
less  of  things  earthly.  If  night  and  the  starry  sky  speak 
to  the  meditative  soul  of  God,  of  eternity  and  the  infinite, 
the  dawn  is  the  time  for  projects,  for  resolutions,  for  the 
birth  of  action.  While  the  silence  and  the  "sad  serenity 
of  the  azure  vault,"  incline  the  soul  to  self-recollection, 
the  vigor  and  gayety  of  nature  spread  into  the  heart  and 
make  it  eager  for  life  and  living.  Spring  is  upon  us. 
Primroses  and  violets  have  already  hailed  her  coming. 
Eash  blooms  are  showing  on  the  peach  trees;  the  swollen 
buds  of  the  pear  trees  and  the  lilacs  point  to  the  blossoming 
that  is  to  be;  the  honeysuckles  are  already  green. 

April  26,  1852. — This  evening  a  feeling  of  emptiness 
took  possession  of  me;  and  the  solemn  ideas  of  duty,  the 
future,  solitude,  pressed  themselves  upon  me.  I  gave 
myself  to  meditation,  a  very  necessary  defense  against  the 
dispersion  and  distraction  brought  about  by  the  day's  work 
and  its  detail.  Head  a  part  of  Krause's  book  "  Urhild 
derMenschheit,"*  which  answered  marvelously  to  my 
thought  and  my  need.  This  philosopher  has  always  a 
beneficent   effect   upon   me;    his  sweet  religious   serenity 

*  Christian  Frederick  Krause,  died  1832,  Hegel's  younger  contem- 
porary, and  the  author  of  a  system  which  he  called  panentheism — 
Amiel  alludes  to  it  later  on. 


26  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

gains  upon  me  and  invades  me.     He  inspires  me  with  a 
sense  of  peace  and  infinity. 

Still  I  miss  something,  common  worship,  a  positive  re 
ligion,  shared  with  other  people.  Ah!  when  will  the 
church  to  which  I  belong  in  heart  rise  into  being?  I 
cannot  like  Scherer,  content  myself  with  being  in  the  right 
all  alone.  I  must  have  a  less  solitary  Christianity.  My 
religious  needs  are  not  satisfied  any  more  than  my  social 
needs,  or  my  needs  of  affection.  Generally  I  am  able  to 
forget  them  and  lull  them  to  sleep.  But  at  times  they 
wake  up  with  a  sort  of  painful  bitterness  ...  I  waver 
between  languor  and  ennui,  between  frittering  myself  away 
on  the  infinitely  little,  and  longing  after  what  is  unknown 
and  distant.  It  is  like  the  situation  which  French  novel- 
ists are  so  fond  of,  the  story  of  a  vie  de  provitice;  only  the 
province  is  all  that  is  not  the  country  of  the  soul,  every 
place  where  the  heart  feels  itself  strange,  dissatisfied,  rest- 
less and  thirsty.  Alas!  well  understood,  this  place  is  the 
earth,  this  country  of  one's  dreams  is  heaven,  and  this 
suffering  is  the  eternal  homesickness,  the  thirst  for  hap- 
piness. . 

^  In  der  Beschrdnkimg  zeigt  sich  erst  der  Meister,^"*  says 
Goethe.  Male  resignation,  this  also  is  the  motto  of  those 
who  are  masters  of  the  art  of  life;  "manly,"  that  is  to  say, 
courageous,  active,  resolute,  persevering,  "resignation," 
that  is  to  say,  self-sacrifice,  renunciation,  limitation. 
Energy  in  resignation,  there  lies  the  wisdom  of  the  sons  of 

th,  the  only  serenity  possible  in  this  life  of  struggle 
.*ad  of  combat.  In  it  is  the  peace  of  martyrdom,  in  it 
too  the  promise  of  triumph. 

April  28,  1852.  (Lancy.)* — Once  more  I  feel  the  spring 
languor  creeping  over  me,  the  spring  air  about  me.  This 
morning  the  poetry  of  the  scene,  the  song  of  the  birds,  the 
tranquil  sunlight,  the  breeze  blowing  over  the  fresh  green 
fields,  all  rose  into  and  filled  my  heart.  Xow  all  is  silent. 
0  silence,  thou  art  terrible!  terrible  as  that  calm  of  the 

*  A  village  near  Geneva. 


AMIEDS  JOURNAL,  27 

ocean  which  lets  the  eye  penetrate  the  fathomless  abysses 
below.  Thou  showest  ns  in  ourselves  depths  which  make 
us  giddy,  inextinguishable  needs,  treasures  of  suffering. 
Welcome  tempests !  at  least  they  blur  and  trouble  the  sur- 
face of  these  waters  with  their  terrible  secrets.  Welcome 
the  passion  blasts  which  stir  the  waves  of  the  soul,  and  so 
veil  from  us  its  bottomless  gulfs!  In  all  of  us,  children  of 
dust,  sons  of  time,  eternity  inspires  an  involuntary  anguish, 
and  the  infinite,  a  mysterious  terror.  We  seem  to  be  en- 
tering a  kingdom  of  the  dead.  Poor  heart,  thy  craving  is 
for  life,  for  love,  for  illusions !  And  thou  art  right  after  all, 
for  life  is  sacred. 

In  these  moments  of  tete-a-tete  with  the  infinite,  how 
different  life  looks!  How  all  that  usually  occupies  and 
excites  us  becomes  suddenly  puerile,  frivolous  and  vain. 
We  seem  to  ourselves  mere  puppets,  marionettes,  strutting 
seriously  through  a  fantastic  show,  and  mistaking  gewgaws 
for  things  of  great  price.  At  such  moments,  how  every- 
thing becomes  transformed,  'how  everything  changes! 
Berkeley  and  Fichte  seem  right,  Emerson  too;  the  world 
is  but  an  allegory;  the  idea  is  more  real  than  the  fact; 
fairy  tales,  legends,  are  as  true  as  natural  history,  and 
even  more  true,  for  they  are  emblems  of  greater  trans- 
parency. The  only  substance  properly  so  called  is  the  soul. 
What  is  all  the  rest?  Mere  shadow,  pretext,  figure,  sym- 
bol, or  dream.  Consciousness  alone  is  immortal,  positive, 
perfectly  real.  The  world  is  but  a  firework,  a  sublime' 
phantasmagoria,  destined  to  cheer  and  form  the  soul. 
Consciousness  is  a  universe,  and  its  sun  is  love.     .     .     • 

Already  I  am  falling  back  into  the  objective  life  of 
thought.  It  delivers  me  from — shall  I  say?  no,  it  deprives 
me  of  the  intimate  life  of  feeling.  Reflection  solves 
reverie  and  burns  her  delicate  wings.  This  is  why  science 
does  not  make  men,  but  merely  entities  and  abstractions. 
Ah,  let  us  feel  and  live  and  beware  of  too  much  analysis! 
Let  us  put  spontaneity,  naivete  before  reflection,  expe- 
rience before  stud^;  let  us  make  life  itself  our  study.  Shall 
[  then  never  have  the  heart  of  a  woman  to  rest  upon?  a 


28  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

son  in  whom  to  live  again,  a  little  world  where  I  may  see 
flowering  and  blooming  all  that  is  stifled  in  me?  I  shrink 
and  draw  back,  for  fear  of  breaking  my  dream.  I  have 
staked  so  much  on  this  card  that  I  dare  not  play  it.  Let 
me  dream  again.     .     .     . 

Do  no  violence  to  yourself,  respect  in  yourself  the  oscil- 
lations of  feeling.  They  are  your  life  and  your  nature; 
One  wiser  than  you  ordained  them.  Do  not  abandon  your- 
self altogether  either  to  instinct  or  to  will.  Instinct  is  a 
siren,  will  a  despot.  Be  neither  the  slave  of  your  impulses 
and  sensations  of  the  moment,  nor  of  an  abstract  and  gen- 
eral plan;  be  open  to  what  life  brings  from  within  and 
without,  and  welcome  the  unforeseen;  but  give  to  your  life 
unity,  and  bring  the  unforeseen  within  the  lines  of  your 
plan.  Let  what  is  natural  in  you  raise  itself  to  the  level  of 
the  spiritual,  and  let  the  spiritual  become  once  more  nat- 
ural. Thus  will  your  development  be  harmonious,  and  the 
peace  of  heaven  will  shine  upon  your  brow;  always  on  con- 
dition that  your  peace  is  made,  and  that  you  have  climbed 
your  Calvary. 

Afternoon — Shall  I  ever  enjoy  again  those  marvelous 
reveries  of  past  days,  as,  for  instance,  once,  when  I  was 
still  quite  a  youth,  in  the  early  dawn,  sitting  among  the 
ruins  of  the  castle  of  Faucigny;  another  time  in  the  moun- 
tains above  Lavey,  under  the  midday  sun,  lying  under  a 
^tree  and  visited  by  tliree  butterflies;  and  again  another 
night  on  the  sandy  shore  of  the  North  Sea,  stretched  full 
length  upon  the  beach,  my  eyes  wandering  over  the  Milky 
Way?  Will  they  ever  return  to  me,  those  grandiose,  im- 
mortal, cosmogonic  dreams,  in  wtiich  one  seems  to  carry 
the  world  in  one's  breast,  to  touch  the  stars,  to  possess  the 
infinite?  Divine  moments,  hours  of  ecstasy,  when  thought 
flies  from  world  to  world,  penetrates  the  great  enigma, 
breathes  with  a  respiration  large,  tranquil,  and  profound, 
like  that  of  the  ocean,  and  hovers  serene  and  boundless 
like  the  blue  heaven!  Visits  from  the  muse,  Urania,  who 
traces  around  the  foreheads  of  those  sh%  loves  the  plios- 
phorescent  nimbus  of  contemplative  power,  and  who  pours 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  29 

into  their  hearts  the  tranquil  intoxication,  if  not  the  au- 
thority of  genius,  moments  of  irresistible  intuition  in 
which  a  man  feels  himself  great  like  the  universe  and  calm 
like  a  god !  From  the  celestial  spheres  down  to  the  shell 
or  the  moss,  the  whole  of  creation  is  then  submitted  to 
our  gaze,  lives  in  our  breast,  and  accomplishes  in  us  its 
eternal  work  with  the  regularity  of  destiny  and  the  passionate 
ardor  of  love.  What  hours,  what  memories!  The  traces 
which  remain  to  us  of  them  are  enough  to  fill  us  with 
respect  and  enthusiasm,  as  though  they  had  been  visits  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  And  then,  to  fall  back  again  from  these 
heights  with  their  boundless  horizons  into  the  muddy  ruts 
of  triviality !  what  a  fall!  Poor  Moses!  Thou  too  sawest 
undulating  in  the  distance  the  ravishing  hills  of  the  prom- 
ised land,  and  it  was  thy  fate  nevertheless  to  lay  thy  weary 
bones  in  a  grave  dug  in  the  desert!  Which  of  us  has  not 
his  promised  land,  his  day  of  ecstasy  and  his  death  in 
exile?  What  a  pale  counterfeit  is  real  life  of  the  life  we  see 
in  glimpses,  and  how  these  flaming  lightnings  of  our  pro- 
phetic youth  make  the  twilight  of  our  dull  monotonous 
manhood  more  dark  and  dreary ! 

April  29  (Lancy). — This  morning  the  air  was  calm, 
the  sky  slightly  veiled.  I  went  out  into  the  garden  to  see 
what  progress  the  spring  was  making.  I  strolled  from  the 
irises  to  the  lilacs,  round  the  flower-beds,  and  in  the  shrub- 
beries. Delightful  surprise  !  at  the  corner  of  the  walk, 
half  hidden  under  a  thick  clump  of  shrubs,  a  small  leaved 
cJiorchorus  had  flowered  during  the  night.  Gay  and  fresh 
as  a  bunch  of  bridal  flowers,  the  little  shrub  glittered  be- 
fore me  in  all  the  attraction  of  its  opening  beauty.  What 
springlike  innocence,  what  soft  and  modest  loveliness,  there 
was  in  these  white  corollas,  opening  gently  to  the  sun,  like 
thoughts  which  smile  upon  us  at  waking,  and  perched 
upon  their  young  leaves  of  virginal  green  like  bees  upon 
the  wing  !  Mother  of  marvels,  mysterious  and  tender  na- 
ture, why  do  we  not  live  more  in  thee?  The  poetical 
■^dneurs  of  Topffer,  his  Charles  and  Jules,  the  friends  and 
passionate  lovers  of  thy  secret  graces,  the  dazzled  and  rar- 


30  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

ished  beholders  of  thy  beauties,  rose  np  in  my  memory,  at 
once  a  reproach  and  a  lesson.  A  modest  garden  and  a 
country  rectory,  the  narrow  horizon  of  a  garret,  contain 
for  those  who  know  how  to  look  and  to  wait  more  in- 
struction than  a  library,  even  than  that  of  Mon  oncle.* 
Yes,  we  are  too  busy,  too  encumbered,  too  much  occupied, 
too  active!  We  read  too  much!  The  one  thing  needful 
is  to  throw  ofE  all  one's  load  of  cares,  of  preoccupations,  of 
pedantry,  and  to  become  again  young,  simple,  child-like, 
living  happily  and  gratefully  in  the  present  hour.  We 
must  know  how  to  put  occupation  aside,  which  does  not 
mean  that  we  must  be  idle.  In  an  inaction  which  is  medi- 
tative and  attentive  the  wrinkles  of  the  soul  are  smoothed 
away,  and  the  soul  itself  spreads,  unfolds,  and  springs 
afresh,  and,  like  the  trodden  grass  of  the  roadside  or  the 
bruised  leaf  of  a  plant,  repairs  its  injuries,  becomes  new, 
spontaneous,  true,  and  original.  Reverie,  like  the  rain  of 
night,  restores  color  and  force  to  thoughts  which  have  been 
blanched  and  wearied  by  the  heat  of  the  day.  With  gentle 
fertilizing  power  it  awakens  within  us  a  thousand  sleeping 
germs,  and  as  though  in  play,  gathers  round  us  mate- 
rials for  the  future,  and  images  for  the  use  of  talent. 
Reverie  is  the  Sunday/  of  thought ;  and  who  knows  which 
is  the  more  important  and  fruitful  for  man,  the  laborious 
tension  of  the  week,  or  the  life-giving  repose  of  the 
Sabbath  ?  The  fldnerie  so  exquisitely  glorified  and  sung 
by  Topffer  is  not  only  delicious,  but  useful.  It  is  like  a 
bath  which  gives  vigor  and  suppleness  to  the  whole  being, 
to  the  mind  as  to  the  body;  it  is  the  sign  and  festival  of 
liberty,  a  joyous  and  wholesome  banquet,  the  banquet  of 
the  butterfly  wandering  from  flower  to  flower  over  the 
hills  and  in  the  fields.  And  remember,  the  soul 
too  is  a  butterfly. 

*  The  allusions  in  this  passage  are  to  Topffer's  best  known  books — 
"La  Presbytere  "  and  "La  Bibliotbeque  de  mon  Oncle,"  that  airy  chron- 
icle of  a  hundred  romantic  or  vivacious  nothings  which  has  the  young 
•ttudent  Jules  for  its  center. 


AMIEU 8  JOURNAL.  81 

May  2,  1852.  (Sunday)  Lancy. — This  morning  read  the 
epistle  of  St.  James,  the  exegetical  volume  of  Cellerier*  en 
this  epistle,  and  a  great  deal  of  Pascal,  after  having  first 
of  all  passed  more  than  an  hour  in  the  garden  with  the 
children.  I  made  them  closely  examine  the  flowers,  the 
shrubs,  the  grasshoppers,  the  snails,  in  order  to  practice 
them  in  observation,  in  wonder,  in  kindness. 

How  enormously  important  are  these  first  conversations 
of  childhood !  I  felt  it  this  morning  with  a  sort  of  relig- 
ious terror.  Innocence  and  childhood  are  sacred.  The 
sower  who  casts  in  the  seed,  the  father  or  mother  casting 
in  the  fruitful  word  are  accomplishing  a  pontifical  act  and 
ought  to  perform  it  with  religious  awe,  with  prayer  and 
gravity,  for  they  are  laboring  at  the  kingdom  of  God.  All 
seed-sowing  is  a  mysterious  thing,  whether  the  seed  fall 
into  the  earth  or  into  souls.  Man  is  a  husbandman;  his 
whole  work  rightly  understood  is  to  develop  life,  to  sow  it 
everywhere.  Such  is  the  mission  of  humanity,  and  of  this 
divine  mission  the  great  instrument  is  speech.  We  forget 
too  often  that  language  is  both  a  seed-sowing  and  a  revela- 
tion. The  influence  of  a  word  in  season,  is  it  not  incalcu- 
lable? What  a  mystery  is  speech !  But  we  are  blind  to 
it,  because  we  are  carnal  and  earthy.  We  see  the 
stones  and  the  trees  by  the  road,  the  furniture  of  our 
houses,  all  that  is  palpaple  and  material.  We  have  no  eyes 
for  the  invisible  phalanxes  of  ideas  which  people  the  air 
and  hover  incessantly  around  each  one  of  us. 

Every  life  is  a  profession  of  faith,  and  exercises  an  inev- 
itable and  silent  propaganda.  As  far  as  lies  in  its  powei, 
it  tends  to  transform  the  universe  and  humanity  into  its 
own  image.  Thus  we  have  all  a  cure  of  souls.  Every 
man  is  the  center  of  perpetual  radiation  like  a  luminous 
body;  he  is,  as  it  were,  a  beacon  which  entices  a  ship  upon 
the  rocks  if  it  does  not  guide  it  into  port.     Every  man  is  a 

*  Jacob-6lysee  Cellerier,  professor  of  theology  at  the  Academy  of 
Geneva,  and  son  of  the  pastor  of  Saticnv  mentioned  in  Madame  de 
Steel's  "  L'AUemagne." 


32  A  MIRL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

priest,  even  involuntarily;  his  conduct  is  an  unspoken 
sermon,  which  is  forever  preaching  to  others;  but  there 
are  priests  of  Baal,  of  Moloch,  and  of  all  the  false  gods. 
Such  is  the  high  importance  of  example.  Thence  comes 
the  terrible  responsibility  which  weighs  upon  us  all.  An 
evil  example  is  a  spiritual  poison:  it  is  the  proclamation  of 
'  a  sacrilegious  faith,  of  an  impure  God.  Sin  would  be  only 
an  evil  for  him  who  commits  it,  were  it  not  a  crime  toward 
the  weak  brethren,  whom  it  corrupts.  Therefore,  it  has 
been  said :  "  It  were  better  for  a  man  not  to  have  been  bom 
than  to  offend  one  of  these  little  ones." 

May  6,  1852. — It  is  women  who,  like  mountain  flowers, 
mark  with  most  characteristic  precision  the  gradation 
of  social  zones.  The  hierarchy  of  classes  is  plainly  visible 
among  them;  it  is  blurred  in  the  other  sex.  With 
women  this  hierarchy  has  the  average  regularity  of  nature; 
among  men  we  see  it  broken  by  the  incalculable  varieties 
of  human  freedom.  The  reason  is  that  the  man  on  the 
whole,  makes  himself  by  his  own  activity,  and  that  the 
woman,  is,  on  the  whole,  made  by  her  situation;  that 
the  one  modifies  and  shapes  circumstance  by  his  own 
energy,  while  the  gentleness  of  the  other  is  dominated  by 
and  reflects  circumstance;  so  that  woman,  so  to  speak, 
inclines  to  be  species,  and  man  to  be  individual. 

Thus,  which  is  curious,  women  are  at  once  the  sex  which 
is  most  constant  and  most  variable.  Most  constant  from 
the  moral  point  of  view,  most  variable  from  the  social.  A 
confraternity  in  the  first  case,  a  hierarchy  in  the  second. 
All  degrees  of  culture  and  all  conditions  of  society  are 
clearly  marked  in  their  outward  appearance,  their  man- 
ners and  their  tastes ;  but  the  in  ward  fraternity  is  traceable 
in  their  feelings,  their  instincts,  and  their  desires.  The  fem- 
inine sex  represents  at  the  same  time  natural  and  historical 
inequality ;  it  maintains  the  unity  of  the  species  and  marks  off 
the  categories  of  society,  it  brings  together  and  divides,  it 
gathers  and  separates,  it  makes  castes  and  breaks  through 
them,  according  as  it  interprets  its  twofold  role  in  the  one 
flense  or  the  other.     At  bottom,  woman's  mission  is  es»«fn 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  33 

tially  conservative,  but  she  is  a  conservative  without  dis- 
crimination. On  the  one  side,  she  maintains  God's  work 
in  man,  all  that  is  lasting,  noble,  and  truly  human,  in  the 
race,  poetry,  religion,  virtue,  tenderness.  On  the  other, 
she  maintains  the  results  of  circumstance,  all  that  is  pass- 
ing, local,  and  artificial  in  society;  that  is  to  say,  customs, 
absurdities,  prejudices,  littlenesses.  She  surrounds  with  the 
same  respectful  and  tenacious  faith  the  serious  and  the 
irivolous,  the  good  and  the  bad.  Well,  what  then  ? 
Isolate  if  you  can,  the  fire  from  its  smoke.  It  is  a  divine 
law  that  you  are  are  tracing,  and  therefore  good.  The 
woman  preserves;  she  is  tradition  as  the  man  is  progress. 
And  if  there  is  no  family  and  no  humanity  without  the 
two  sexes,  without  these  two  forces  there  is  no  history. 

May  14,  1852.  (Lancy.) — Yesterday  I  was  full  of  the 
philosophy  of  joy,  of  youth,  of  the  spring,  which  smiles 
and  the  roses  which  intoxicate;  I  preached  the  doctrine  of 
strength,  and  I  forgot  that,  tried  and  afflicted  like  the 
two  friends  with  whom  I  was  walking,  I  should  probably 
have  reasoned  and  felt  as  they  did. 

Our  systems,  it  has  been  said,  are  the  expression  of  our 
character,  or  the  theory  of  our  situation,  that  is  to  say,  we 
like  to  think  of  what  has  been  given  as  having  been  ac- 
quired, we  take  our  nature  for  our  own  work,  and  our  lot 
in  life  for  our  own  conquest,  an  illusion  born  of  vanity  and 
also  of  the  craving  for  liberty.  We  are  unwilling  to  be  the 
product  of  circumstances,  or  the  mere  expansion  of  an 
inner  germ.  And  yet  we  have  received  everything,  and 
the  part  which  is  really  ours,  is  small  indeed,  for  it  is 
mostly  made  up  of  negation,  resistance,  faults.  We  receive 
everything,  both  life  and  happiness;  but  the  manner  in 
Avhich  we  receive,  this  is  what  is  still  ours.  Let  us  then, 
receive  trustfully  without  shame  or  anxiety.  Let  us  hum- 
bly accept  from  God  even  our  own  nature,  and  treat  it 
charitably,  firmly,  intelligently.  Not  that  we  are  called 
upon  to  accept  the  evil  and  the  disease  in  us,  but  let  us 
accept  ourselves  in  spite  of  the  evil  and  the  disease.  And 
let  us  never  be  afraid  of  innocnt  joy;  God  is  good,  and 


34  A  MIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

what  He  does  is  well  done;  resign  yourself  to  everything 
even  to  happiness;  ask  for  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  of  detach- 
ment, of  renunciation,  and  above  all,  for  the  spirit  of  joy 
and  gratitude,  that  genuine  and  religious  optimism  which 
sees  in  God  a  father,  and  asks  no  pardon  for  His  benefits. 
We  must  dare  to  be  happy,  and  dare  to  confess  it,  regard- 
ing ourselves  always  as  the  depositaries,  not  as  the  authors 
of  our  own  joy. 


.  .  .  This  evening  I  saw  the  first  glow-worm  of  the 
season  in  the  turf  beside  the  little  winding  road  which 
descends  from  Lancy  toward  the  town.  It  was  crawling 
furtively  under  the  grass,  like  a  timid  thought  or  a  dawn- 
ing talent. 

June  17,  1852. — Every  despotism  has  a  specially  keen 
and  hostile  instinct  for  whatever  keeps  up  human  dignity, 
and  independence.  And  it  is  curious  to  see  scientific  and 
realist  teaching  used  everywhere  as  a  means  of  stifling  all 
freedom  of  investigation  as  addressed  to  moral  questions 
under  a  dead  weight  of  facts.  Materialism  is  the  auxiliary 
doctrine  of  every  tyranny,  whether  of  the  one  or  of  the 
masses.  To  crush  what  is  spiritual,  moral,  human  so  to 
speak,  in  man,  by  specializing  him ;  to  form  mere  wheels 
of  the  great  social  machine,  instead  of  perfect  individuals; 
to  make  society  and  not  conscience  the  center  of  life,  to 
enslave  the  soul  to  things,  to  de-personalize  man,  this  is 
the  dominant  drift  of  our  epoch.  Everywhere  you  may 
see  a  tendency  to  substitute  the  laws  of  dead  matter  (num- 
ber, mass)  for  the  laws  of  the  moral  nature  (persuasion, 
adhesion,  faith)  equality,  the  principle  of  mediocrity, 
becoming  a  dogma;  unity  aimed  at  through  uniformity; 
numbers  doing  duty  for  argument;  negative  liberty, 
which  has  no  law  in  itself ^  and  recognizes  no  limit  ex- 
cept in  force,  everywhere  taking  the  place  of  positive  lib- 
erty, which  means  action  guided  by  an  inner  law  and 
curbed  by  a  moral  authority.  Socialism  versus  individual- 
ism :  this  is  how  Vinet  put  the  dilemma.  I  should  say 
rather  that  it  is  only  the  eternal  antagonism  between  letter 


AMJ EL'S  JOURNAL.  35 

and  spirit,  between  form  and  matter,  between  the  outward 
and  the  inward,  appearance  and  reality,  which  is  always 
present  in  every  conception  and  in  all  ideas. 

Materialism  coarsens  and  petrifies  everything;  makes 
everything  vulgar  and  every  truth  false.  And  there  is  a 
religious  and  political  materialism  which  spoils  all  that  it 
touches,  liberty,  equality,  individuality.  So  that  there  are 
two  ways  of  understanding  democracy.     .     .     . 

What  is  threatened  to-day  is  moral  liberty,  conscience, 
respect  for  the  soul,  the  very  nobility  of  man.  To  defend 
the  soul,  its  interests,  its  rights,  its  dignity,  is  the  most 
pressing  duty  for  whoever  sees  the  danger.  What  the 
writer,  the  teacher,  the  pastor,  the  philosopher,  has  to  do, 
is  to  defend  humanity  in  man.  Man !  the  true  man,  the 
ideal  man !  Such  should  be  their  motto,  their  rallying  cry. 
War  to  all  that  debases,  diminishes,  hinders,  and  degrades 
him;  protection  for  all  that  fortifies,  ennobles,  and  raises 
him.  The  test  of  every  religious,  political,  or  educational 
system,  is  the  man  which  it  forms.  If  a  system  injures 
the  intelligence  it  is  bad.  If  it  injures  the  character  it  is 
vicious.     If  it  injures  the  conscience  it  is  criminal. 

August  12,  1852.  (Lancy.) — Each  sphere  of  being  tends 
toward  a  higher  sphere,  and  has  already  revelations  and 
presentiments  of  it.  The  ideal  under  all,  its  forms  is  the 
anticipation  and  the  prophetic  vision  of  that  existence,, 
higher  than  his  own,  toward  which  every  being  perpetually 
aspires.  And  this  higher  and  more  dignified  existence  is 
more  inward  in  character,  that  is  to  say,  more  spiritual, 
just  as  volcanoes  reveal  to  us  the  secrets  of  the  interior  of 
the  globe,  so  enthusiasm  and  ecstasy  are  the  passing  ex- 
plosions of  this  inner  world  of  the  soul;  and  human  life  is 
but  the  preparation  and  the  means  of  approach  to  this 
spiritual  life.  The  degrees  of  initiation  are  innumerable. 
Watch,  then,  disciple  of  life,  watch  and  labor  toward  the 
development  of  the  angel  within  thee!  For  the  divine 
Odyssey  is  but  a  series  of  more  and  more  ethereal  meta- 
morphoses, in  which  each  form,  the  result  of  what  goe?' 
before,  is  the  condition  of  those  which  follow,     The   di- 


36  AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL. 

vine  life  is  a  series  of  successive  deaths,  in  which  the  mind 
throws  oil  its  imperfections  and  its  symbols,  and  yields  to 
the  growing  attraction  of  the  ineffable  center  of  gravita- 
tion, the  sun  of  intelligence  and  love.  Created  spirits  in 
the  accomplishment  of  their  destinies  tend,  so  to  speak,  to 
form  constellations  and  milky  ways  within  the  empyrean 
of  the  divinity;  in  becoming  gods,  they  surround  the 
throne  of  the  sovereign  with  a  sparkling  court.  In  their 
greatness  lies  their  homage.  The  divinity  with  which 
they  are  invested  is  the  noblest  glory  of  God.  God  is  the 
father  of  spirits,  and  the  constitution  of  the  eternal  king- 
dom rests  on  the  vassalship  of  love. 

September  27,  1852.  (Lancy.) — To-day  I  complete  my 
thirty-first  year.  .     .     . 

The  most  beautiful  poem  there  is,  is  life — life  which  dis- 
cerns its  own  story  in  the  making,  in  which  inspiration 
and  self-consciousness  go  together  and  help  each  other,  life 
which  knows  itself  to  be  the  world  in  little,  a  repetition  in 
miniature  of  the  divine  universal  poem.  Yes,  be  man; 
that  is  to  say,  be  nature,  be  spirit,  be  the  image  of  God, 
be  what  is  greatest,  most  beautiful,  most  lofty  in  all 
the  spheres  of  being,  be  infinite  will  and  idea,  a  reproduc- 
tion of  the  great  whole.  And  be  everything  while  being 
nothing,  effacing  thyself,  letting  God  enter  into  thee  as 
the  air  enters  an  empty  space,  reducing  the  ego  to  the 
mere  vessel  which  contains  the  divine  essence.  Be  hum- 
ble, devout,  silent,  that  so  thou  mayest  hear  within  the 
depths  of  thyself  the  subtle  and  profound  voice;  be  spirit- 
ual and  pure,  that  so  thou  mayest  have  communion  with 
the  pure  spirit.  Withdraw  thyself  often  into  the  sanctuary 
of  thy  inmost  consciousness;  become  once  more  point  and 
atom,  that  so  thou  mayest  free  thyself  from  space,  time, 
matter,  temptation,  dispersion,  that  thou  mayest  escape 
thy  very  organs  themselves  and  thine  own  life.  That  is 
to  say,  dis  often,  and  examine  thyself  in  the  presence  of 
^his  death,  as  a  preparation  for  the  last  death.  He  who 
can  without  shuddering  confront  blindness,  deafness, 
paralysis,  disease,  betrayal,  poverty;  he  who  can  without 


AMIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  3  7 

terror  appear  before  the  sovereign  justice,  he  alone  can 
call  himself  prepared  for  partial  or  total  death.  How 
far  am  I  from  anything  of  the  sort,  how  far  is  my  heart 
from  any  such  stoicism !  But  at  least  we  can  try  to  detach 
ourselves  from  all  that  can  be  taken  away  from  us,  to 
accept  everything  as  a  loan  and  a  gift,  and  to  cling  only  to 
the  imperishable — this  at  any  rate  we  can  attempt.  To 
believe  in  a  good  and  fatherly  God,  who  educates  us,  who 
tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb,  who  punishes  only 
when  he  must,  and  takes  away  only  with  regret;  this 
thought,  or  rather  this  conviction,  gives  courage  and  secu- 
rity. Oh,  what  need  we  have  of  love,  of  tenderness,  of 
affection,  of  kindness,  and  how  vulnerable  we  are,  we  the 
sons  of  God,  we,  immortal  and  sovereign  beings!  Strong 
as  the  universe  or  feeble  as  the  worm,  according  as  we 
represent  God  or  only  ourselves,  as  we  lean  upon  infinite 
being,   or  as  we  stand  alone. 

The  point  of  view  of  religion,  of  a  religion  at  once  active 
and  moral,  spiritual  and  profound,  alone  gives  to  life  all 
the  dignity  and  all  the  energy  of  which  it  is  capable.  Ke- 
ligion  makes  invulnerable  and  invincible.  Earth  can  only 
be  conquered  in  the  name  of  heaven.  All  good  things  are 
given  over  and  above  to  him  who  desires  but  righteousness. 
To  be  disinterested  is  to  be  strong,  and  the  world  is  at  the 
feet  of  him  whom  it  cannot  tempt.  Why?  Because  spirit  is 
lord  of  matter,  and  the  world  belongs  to  God.  "Be  of 
good  cheer,"  saith  a  heavenly  voice,  "I  have  overcome  the 
world." 

Lord,  lend  thy  strength  to  those  who  are  weak  in  the 
flesh,  but  willing  in  the  spirit! 

October  31,  1852.  (Lancy.) — Walked  for  half  an  hour 
in  the  garden.  A  fine  rain  was  falling,  and  the  landscape 
was  that  of  autumn.  The  sky  was  hung  with  various 
shades  of  gray,  and  mists  hovered  about  the  distant  moun- 
tains, a  melancholy  nature.  The  leaves  were  falling  on  all 
sides  like  the  last  illusions  of  youth  under  the  tears  of 
irremediable  grief.  A  brood  of  chattering  birds  were  chas- 
ing each  other  through  the  shvbberies.  and  playing  games 


38  AMIEU 8  JOURNAL. 

among  the  branches,  like  a  knot  of  hiding  schoolboys. 
The  ground  strewn  with  leaves,  brown,  yellow,  and  red- 
dish; the  trees  half-stripped,  some  more,  some  less,  and 
decked  in  ragged  splendors  of  dark-red,  scarlet,  and  yellow; 
the  reddening  shrubs  and  plantations;  a  few  flowers  still 
lingering  behind,  roses,  nasturtiums,  dahlias,  shedding 
their  petals  round  them;  the  bare  fields,  the  thinned 
hedges;  and  the  fir,  the  only  green  thing  left,  vigorous 
and  stoical,  like  eternal  youth  braving  decay;  all  these 
innumerable  and  marvelous  symbols  which  forms  colors, 
plants,  and  living  beings,  the  earth  and  the  sky,  yield  at  all 
times  to  the  eye  which  has  learned  to  look  for  them,  charmed 
and  enthralled  me.  I  wielded  a  poetic  wand,  and  had  but 
to  touch  a  phenomenon  to  make  it  render  up  to  me  its 
moral  significance.  Every  landscape  is,  as  it  were,  a  state 
of  the  soul,  and  whoever  penetrates  into  both  is  aston- 
ished to  find  how  much  likeness  there  is  in  each  detail. 
True  poetry  is  truer  than  science,  because  it  is  synthetic, 
and  seizes  at  once  what  the  combination  of  all  the  sciences 
is  able  at  most  to  attain  as  a  final  result.  The  soul  of 
nature  is  divined  by  the  poet;  the  man  of  science,  only 
serves  to  accumulate  materials  for  its  demonstration. 

November  6,  1852. — I  am  capable  of  all  the  passions, 
for  I  bear  them  all  within  me.  Like  a  tamer  of  wild 
beasts,  I  keep  them  caged  and  lassoed,  but  I  sometimes 
hear  them  growling.  I  have  stifled  more  than  one  nascent 
love.  Why  ?  Because  with  that  prophetic  certainty 
which  belongs  to  moral  intuition,  I  felt  it  lacking  in  true 
life,  and  less  durable  than  myself.  I  choked  it  down  in 
the  name  of  the  supreme  affection  to  come.  The  loves  of 
sense,  of  imagination,  of  sentiment,  I  have  seen  through, 
and  rejected  them  all;  I  sought  the  love  which  springs 
from  the  central  profundities  of  being.  And  I  still  believe 
in  it.  I  will  have  none  of  those  passions  of  straw  which 
dazzle,  burn  up,  and  wither;  I  invoke,  I  await,  and  I  hope 
for  the  love  which  is  great,  pure  and  earnest,  which  lives  and 
works  in  all  the  fibres  and  through  all  the  powers  of  the 
soul.     And  even  if  I  go  lonely  to  the  end,  I  would  rather 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  39 

my  hope  and  my  dream  died  with  me,  than  that  my  soul 
should  content  itself  with  any  meaner  union. 

November  8,  1852. — Responsibility  is  my  invisible 
nightmare.  To  suffer  through  one's  own  fault  is  a  tor- 
ment worthy  of  the  lost,  for  so  grief  is  envenomed  by 
ridicule,  and  the  worst  ridicule  of  all,  that  which  springs 
from  shame  of  one's  self.  I  have  only  force  and  energj' 
wherewith  to  meet  evils  coming  from  outside;  but  an  irre- 
parable evil  brought  about  by  myself,  a  renunciation  for 
life  of  my  liberty,  my  peace  of  mind,  the  very  thought  of 
it  is  maddening — I  expiate  my  privilege  indeed.  My  priv- 
ilege is  to  be  spectator  of  my  life  drama,  to  be  fully  con- 
scious of  the  tragi-comedy  of  my  own  destiny,  and,  more 
than  that,  to  be  in  the  secret  of  the  tragi-comic  itself,  that 
is  to  say,  to  be  unable  to  take  my  illusions  seriously,  to 
see  myself,  so  to  speak,  from  the  theater  on  the  stage,  or 
to  be  like  a  man  looking  from  beyond  the  tomb  into  exist- 
ence. I  feel  myself  forced  to  feign  a  particular  interest 
in  my  individual  part,  while  all  the  time  I  am  living  in  the 
confidence  of  the  poet  who  is  playing  with  all  these  agents 
which  seem  so  important,  and  knows  all  that  they  are  ig- 
norant of.  It  is  a  strange  position,  and  one  which  be- 
comes painful  as  soon  as  grief  obliges  me  to  betake  myself 
once  more  to  my  own  little  role,  binding  me  closely  to  it, 
and  warning  me  that  I  am  going  too  far  in  imagining  my- 
self, because  of  my  conversations  with  the  poet,  dispensed 
from  taking  up  again  my  modest  part  of  valet  in  the 
piece.  Shakespeare  must  have  experienced  this  feeling 
often,  and  Hamlet,  I  think,  must  express  it  somewhere. 
It  is  a  Doppelgdngerei,  quite  German  in  character,  and 
which  explains  the  disgust  with  reality  and  the  repug- 
nance to  public  life,  so  common  among  the  thinkers 
of  Germany.  There  is,  as  it  were,  a  degradation 
a  gnostic  fall,  in  thus  folding  one's  wings  and 
going  back  again  into  the  vulgar  shell  of  one's  own  in- 
dividuality. Without  grief,  which  is  the  string  of  this 
venturesome  kite,  man  would  soar  too  quickly  and  too  high, 
and  the  chosen  souls  would  be  lost  for  the  race,  like  bal- 


40  AMIEL'8  JOURNAL. 

loons  which,  save  for  gravitation,  would  never  return  from 
the  empyrean. 

How,  then,  is  one  to  recover  courage  enough  for  action? 
By  striving  to  restore  in  one's  self  something  of  that  uncon- 
sciousness, spontaneity,  instinct,  which  reconciles  us  to 
earth  and  makes  man  useful  and  relatively  happy. 

By  believing  more  practically  in  the  providence  which 
pardons  and  allows  of  reparation. 

By  accepting  our  human  condition  in  a  more  simple 
and  childlike  spirit,  fearing  trouble  less,  calculating  less, 
hoping  more.  For  we  decrease  our  responibility,  if  we 
decrease  our  clearness  of  vision,  and  fear  lessens  with  the 
lessening  of  responsibility. 

By  extracting  a  richer  experience  out  of  our  losses  and 
lessons. 

November  9,  1852. — A  few  pages  of  the  Chresiomaihie 
FranQaise  and  Vinet's  remarkable  letter  at  the  head  of  the 
volume,  have  given  me  one  or  two  delightful  hours.  As  a 
thinker,  as  a  Christian,  and  as  a  man,  Vinet  occupies  a 
typical  place.  His  philosophy,  his  theology,  his  aesthetics, 
in  short,  his  work,  will  be,  or  has  been  already  surpassed  at 
all  points.  His  was  a  great  soul  and  a  fine  talent.  But 
neither  were  well  enough  served  by  circumstances.  We 
see  in  him  a  personality  worthy  of  all  veneration,  a  man  of 
singular  goodness  and  a  writer  of  distinction,  but  not  quite 
a  great  man,  nor  yet  a  great  writer.  Profundity  and  pur- 
ity, these  are  what  he  posseses  in  a  high  degree,  but  not 
greatness,  properly  speaking.  For  that,  he  is  a  little  too 
subtle  and  analytical,  too  ingenious  and  fine-spun;  his 
thought  is  overladen  with  detail,  and  has  not  enough 
flow,  eloquence,  imagination,  warmth,  and  largeness. 
Essentially  and  constantly  meditative,  he  has  not  strength, 
enough  left  to  deal  with  what  is  outside  him.  The  casu- 
istries of  conscience  and  of  language,  eternal  self-suspicion, 
and  self-examination,  his  talent  lies  in  these  things,  and  is 
limited  by  them.  Vinet  wants  passion,  abundance,  e7itrai' 
nemeni,  and  therefore  popularity.  The  individualism 
which  is  his  title  to  glory  is  also  the  <;au8e  of  his  weakness, 


I 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  41 

We  find  in  him  always  the  solitary  and  the  ascetic.  His 
thought  is,  as  it  were,  perpetually  at  church ;  it  is  perpet- 
ually devising  trials  and  penances  for  itself.  Hence  the 
air  of  scruple  and  anxiety  which  characterizes  it  even  in  its 
bolder  flights.  Moral  energy,  balanced  by  a  disquieting 
delicacy  of  fibre;  a  fine  organization  marred,  so  to  speak,  by 
low  health,  such  is  the  impression  it  makes  upon  us.  Is 
it  reproach  or  praise  to  say  of  Vinet's  mind  that  it  seems 
to  one  a  force  perpetually  reacting  upon  itself?  A  warmer 
and  more  self-forgetful  manner;  more  muscles,  as  it  were, 
around  the  nerves,  more  circles  of  intellectual  and  histor- 
ical life  around  the  individual  circle,  these  are  what  Vinet, 
of  all  writers  perhaps  the  one  who  makes  us  tldnk  most, 
is  still  lacking  in.  Less  reflexivity  and  more  plasticity, 
the  eye  more  on  the  object,  would  raise  the  style  of  Vinet, 
so  rich  in  substance,  so  nervous,  so  full  of  ideas,  and  vari- 
ety, into  a  grand  style.  Vinet,  to  sum  up,  is  conscience 
personified,  as  man  and  as  writer.  Happy  the  literature 
and  the  society  which  is  able  to  count  at  one  time  two  or 
three  like  him,  if  not  equal  to  him ! 

November  10,  1852. — How  much  have  we  not  to  learn 
from  the  Greeks,  those  immortal  ancestors  of  ours!  And 
how  much  better  they  solved  their  problem  than  we  have 
solved  ours.  Their  ideal  man  is  not  ours,  but  they  un- 
derstood infinitely  better  than  we  how  to  reverejice,  cultivate 
and  ennoble  the  man  whom  they  knew.  In  a  thousand  re- 
spects we  are  still  barbarians  beside  them,  as  Beranger 
said  to  me  with  a  sigh  in  1843:  barbarians  in  education,  in 
eloquence,  in  public  life,  in  poetry,  in  matters  of  art,  etc. 
We  must  have  millions  of  men  in  order  to  produce  a  few 
elect  spirits:  a  thousand  was  enough  in  Greece.  If  the 
measure  of  a  civilization  is  to  be  the  number  of  perfected 
men  that  it  produces,  we  are  still  far  from  this  model 
people.  The  slaves  are  no  longer  below  us,  but  they  are 
among  us.  Barbarism  is  no  longer  at  our  frontiers;  it 
lives  side  by  side  with  us.  We  carry  within  us  much 
greater  things  than  they,  but  we  ourselves  are  smaller.  It 
ifl  a  strange  result.     Objective  civilization  preduced  great 


4^  AMIBVS  JO  URN  A  L. 

men  while  hiaking  no  conscious  effort  toward  snch  a  resnlt*, 
subjective  civilization  produces  a  miserable  and  imperfect 
race,  contrary  to  its  mission  and  its  earnest  desire.  The 
world  grows  more  majestic  but  man  diminishes.  Why  is 
this? 

We  have  too  much  barbarian  blood  in  our  veins,  and  we 
lack  measure,  harmony  and  grace.  Christianity,  in  break- 
ing man  up  into  outer  and  inner,  the  world  into  earth  and 
heaven,  hell  and  paradise,  has  decomposed  the  human  unity, 
in  order,  it  is  true,  to  reconstruct  it  more  profoundly  and 
more  truly.  But  Christianity  has  not  yet  digested  this 
powerful  leaven.  She  has  not  yet  conquered  the  true  hu- 
manity; she  is  still  living  under  the  antimony  of  sin  and 
grace,  of  here  below  and  there  above.  She  has  not  pene- 
trated into  the  whole  heart  of  Jesus.  She  is  still  in  the 
narthex  of  penitence;  she  is  not  reconciled,  and  even  the 
churches  still  wear  the  livery  of  service,  and  have  none  of 
the  joy  of  the  daughters  of  God,  baptized  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

Then,  again,  tliere  is  our  excessive  division  of  labor;  our 
bad  and  foolish  education  which  does  not  develop  the 
whole  man;  and  the  problem  of  poverty.  We  have  abol- 
ished slavery,  but  without  having  solved  the  question  of 
labor.  In  law  there  are  no  more  slaves,  in  fact,  there  are 
many.  And  while  the  majority  of  men  are  not  free,  the 
free  man,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term  can  neither  be  con- 
ceived nor  realized.  Here  are  enough  causes  for  our 
inferiority. 

November  12,  1852. — St.  Martin's  summer  is  still  linger- 
ing, and  the  days  all  begin  in  mist.  I  ran  for  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  round  the  garden  to  get  some  warmth  and  supple- 
ness. Nothing  could  be  lovelier  than  the  last  rosebuds, 
or  than  the  delicate  gaufred  edges  of  the  strawberry  leaves 
embroidered  with  hoar-frost,  while  above  them  Arachne's 
delicate  webs  hung  swaying  in  the  green  branches  of  the 
pines,  little  ball-rooms  for  the  fairies  carpeted  with  pow- 
dered pearls  and  kept  in  place  by  a  thousand  dewy  strands 
hanging  from  above  like  the  chains  of  a  lamp  and  support- 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  4^ 

iiig  them  from  below  like  the  anchors  of  a  vessel.  Thes6 
little  airy  edifices  had  all  the  fantastic  lightness  of  the  elf- 
world  and  all  the  vaporous  freshness  of  dawn.  They  re- 
called to  me  the  poetry  of  the  north,  wafting  to  me  a  breath 
from  Caledonia  or  Iceland  or  Sweden,  Frithiof  and  th^ 
Edda,  Ossian  and  the  Hebrides.  All  that  world  of  cold  and 
mist,  of  genius  and  of  reverie,  where  warmth  comes  not 
from  the  sun  but  from  the  heart  where  man  is  more  notice- 
able than  nature — that  chaste  and  vigorous  world  in  which 
will  plays  a  greater  part  than  sensation  and  thought  has  more 
power  than  instinct — in  short  the  whole  romantic  cycle 
of  German  and  northern  poetry,  awoke  little  by  little  in 
my  memory  and  laid  claim  upon  my  sympathy.  It  is  a 
poetry  of  bracing  quality,  and  acts  upon  one  like  a  moral 
tonic.  Strange  charm  of  imagination  !  A  twig  of  pine 
wood  and  a  few  spider-webs  are  enough  to  make  countries, 
epochs,  and  nations  live  again  before  her. 

December  26,  1852.  (Sunday.) — If  I  reject  many  por- 
tions of  our  theology  and  of  our  church  system,  it  is  that  I 
may  the  better  reach  the  Christ  himself.  My  philosophy 
allows  me  this.  It  does  not  state  the  dilemma  as  one  of 
religion  or  philosophy,  but  as  one  of  religion  accepted  or 
experienced,  understood  or  not  understood.  For  me  phi- 
losophy is  a  manner  of  apprehending  things,  a  mode  of 
perception  of  reality.  It  does  not  create  nature,  man  or 
Grod,  but  it  finds  them  and  seeks  to  understand  them. 
Philosophy  is  consciousness  taking  account  of  itself  with 
all  that  it  contains.  Now  consciousness  may  contain  a 
new  life — the  facts  of  regeneration  and  of  salvation,  that  is 
to  say.  Christian  experience.  The  understanding  of  the 
Christian  consciousness  is  an  integral  part  of  philosophy, 
as  the  Christian  consciousness  is  a  leading  form  of  religious 
consciousness,  and  religious  consciousness  an  essential  form 
of  consciousness. 


An  error  is  the  more  dangerous  in  proportion  to  the 
degree  of  truth  which  it  contains. 


44  A  MI  EL' 8  JO  URN  A  L. 

Look  twice,  if  what  you  want  is  a  just  conception;  look 
once,  if  what  you  want  is  a  sense  of  beauty. 


A  man  only  understands  what  is  akin  to  something 
already  existing  in  himself. 


Common  sense  is  the  measure  of  the  possible;  it  is 
composed  of  experience  and  prevision;  it  is  calculation 
applied  to  life. 


The  wealth  of  each  mind  is  proportioned  to  the  number 
*nd  to  the  precision  of  its  categories  and  its  points  of  view. 


To  feel  himself  freer  than  his  neighbor  is  the  reward  of 
iihe  critic. 

Modesty  {pudeur)  is  always  the  sign  and  safeguard  of- 
a  mystery.  It  is  explained  by  its  contrary — profanation. 
Shyness  or  modesty  is,  in  truth,  the  half-conscious  sense 
of  a  secret  of  nature  or  of  the  soul  too  intimately  individ- 
ual to  be  given  or  surrendered.  It  is  exchanged.  To  sur- 
render what  is  most  profound  and  mysterious  in  one's 
heing  and  personality  at  any  price  less  than  that  of  abso- 
lute reciprocity  is  profanation. 

January  6,  1853. — Self-government  with  tenderness — 
here  you  have  the  condition  of  all  authority  over  children. 
The  child  must  discover  in  us  no  passion,  no  weakness  of 
which  he  can  make  use;  he  must  feel  himself  powerless  to 
deceive  or  to  trouble  us;  then  he  will  recognize  in  us  his 
natural  superiors,  and  he  will  attach  a  special  value  to  our 
kindness,  because  he  will  respect  it.  The  child  who  can 
rouse  in  us  anger,  or  impatience,  or  excitement,  feels  him- 
self stronger  than  we,  and  a  child  only  respects  strength. 
The  mother  should  consider  herself  as  her  child's  sun,  a 
changeless  and  ever  radiant  world,  whither  the  small  rest- 
less creature,  quick  at  tears  and  laughter,  light,  fickle,  pas- 
sionate, full  of  storms,  may  come  for  fresh  stores  of  light, 
warmth,  and  electricity,  of  calm  and  of  courage.  The 
mother  represents  goodness,  providence,  law;   that  is  to 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  45 

Bay,  the  divinity,  under  that  form  of  it  which  is  accessible 
to  childhood.  If  she  is  herself  passionate,  she  will  incul- 
cate on  her  child  a  capricious  and  despotic  God,  or  even 
several  discordant  gods.  The  religion  of  a  child  depends 
on  what  its  mother  and  its  father  are,  and  not  on  what 
they  say.  The  inner  and  unconscious  ideal  which  guides 
their  life  is  precisely  what  touches  the  child ;  their  words, 
their  remonstrances,  their  punishments,  their  bursts  of 
feeling  even,  are  for  him  merely  thunder  and  comedy; 
what  they  worship,  this  it  is  which  his  instinqt  divines  and 
reflects. 

The  child  sees  what  we  are,  behind  what  we  wish  to  be. 
Hence  his  reputation  as  a  physiognomist.  He  extends  his 
power  as  far  as  he  can  with  each  of  us;  he  is  the  most 
subtle  of  diplomatists.  Unconsciously  he  passes  under  the 
influence  of  each  person  about  him,  and  reflects  it  while 
transforming  it  after  hi?  own  nature.  He  is  a  magnifying 
mirror.  This  is  why  the  first  principle  of  education  is: 
train  yourself;  and  the  first  rule  to  follow  if  you  wish  to 
possess  yourself  of  a  child's  will  is:  master  your  own. 

February  5,  1853  (seven  o'clock  in  the  morning). — I  am 
always  astonished  at  the  difference  between  one's  inward 
mood  of  the  evening  and  that  of  the  morning.  The  pas- 
sions which  are  dominant  in  the  evening,  in  the  morning 
leave  the  field  free  for  the  contemplative  part  of  the  soul. 
Our  whole  being,  irritated  and  overstrung  by  the  nervous 
excitement  of  the  day,  arrives  in  the  evening  at  the  culmi- 
nating point  of  its  human  vitality;  the  same  being,  tran- 
quilized  by  the  calm  of  sleep,  is  in  the  morning  nearer 
heaven.  We  should  weigh  a  resolution  in  the  two  balances, 
and  examine  an  idea  under  the  two  lights,  if  we  wish  to 
minimize  the  chances  of  error  by  taking  the  average  of  our 
daily  oscillations.  Our  inner  life  describes  regular  curves, 
barometical  curves,  as  it  were,  independent  of  the  accidental 
disturbances  which  the  storms  of  sentiment  and  passion 
may  raise  in  us.  Every  soul  has  its  climate,  or  rather,  is  a 
climate;  it  has,  so  to  speak,  its  own  meteorology  in  the 
general  meteorology  of  the  soul.      Psychology,  therefore, 


46  A MIEL'S  JO  URNAL. 

cannot  be  complete  so  long  as  the  physiology  of  our  planet 
is  itself  incomplete — that  science  to  which  we  give  nowa- 
days the  insufficient  name  of  physics  of  the  globe. 

I  became  conscious  this  morning  that  what  appears  to  us 
impossible  is  often  an  impossibility  altogether  subjective. 
Our  mind,  under  the  action  of  the  passions,  produces  by  a 
strange  mirage  gigantic  obstacles,  mountains  or  abysses, 
which  stop  us  short.  Breathe  upon  the  passion  and  the 
phantasmagoria  will  vanish.  This  power  of  mirage,  by 
'which  we  ar^  able  to  delude  and  fascinate  ourselves,  is  a 
moral  phenomenon  worthy  of  attentive  study.  We  make 
for  ourselves,  in  truth,  our  own  spiritual  world  monsters, 
chimeras,  angels,  we  make  objective  what  ferments  in  us.  All 
is  marvelous  for  the  poet ;  all  is  divine  for  the  saint ;  all  is  great 
for  the  hero;  all  is  wretched,  miserable,  ugly,  and  bad  for  the 
base  and  sordid  soul.  The  bad  man  creates  around  him  a  pan- 
demonium, the  artist,  an  Olympus,  the  elect  soul,  a  para- 
dise, which  each  of  them  sees  for  himself  alone.  We  are 
all  visionaries,  and  what  we  see  is  our  soul  in  things.  We 
reward  ourselves  and  punish  ourselves  without  knowing  it, 
so  that  all  appears  to  change  when  we  change. 

The  soul  is  essentially  active,  and  the  activity  of  which 
we  are  conscious  is  but  a  part  of  our  activity,  and  voluntary 
activity  is  but  a  part  of  our  conscious  activity.  Here  we 
have  the  basis  of  a  whole  psychology  and  system  of  morals. 
Man  reproducing  the  world,  surrounding  himself  with  a 
nature  which  is  the  objective  rendering  of  his  spiritual  na- 
ture, rewarding  and  punishing  himself;  the  universe 
identical  with  the  divine  nature,  and  the  nature  of  the 
perfect  spirit  only  becoming  understood  according  to  the 
measure  of  our  perfection;  intuition  the  recompense  of 
inward  purity;  science  as  the  result  of  goodness;  in  short, 
a  new  phenomenology  more  complete  and  more  moral,  in 
which  the  total  soul  of  things  becomes  spirit.  This  shall  per- 
haps be  my  subject  for  my  summer  lectures.  How  much 
is  contained  in  it !  the  whole  domain  of  inner  education,  all 
that  is  mysterious  in  our  life,  the  relation  of  nature  to 
spirit,  of  God  and  all  other  beings  to  man,  the  repetition 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  4? 

in  miniature  of  the  cosmogony,  mythology,  theology, 
and  history  of  the  universe,  the  evolution  of  mind,  in  a  word 
the  problem  of  problems  into  which  I  have  often  plunged 
but  from  which  finite  things,  details,  minutiae,  have  turned 
me  back  a  thousand  times.  I  return  to  the  brink  of  the  great 
abyss  with  the  clear  perception  that  here  lies  the  problem 
of  science,  that  to  sound  it  is  a  duty,  that  God  hides  Him- 
self only  in  light  and  love,  that  He  calls  upon  us  to  become 
spirits,  to  possess  ourselves  and  to  possess  Him  in  the  meas- 
ure of  our  strength  and  that  it  is  our  incredulity,  our  spir- 
itual cowardice,  which  is  our  infirmity  and  weakness. 

Dante,  gazing  into  the  three  worlds  with  their  divers 
heavens,  saw  under  the  form  of  an  image  what  I  would 
fain  seize  under  a  purer  form.  But  he  was  a  poet, 
and  I  shall  only  be  a  philosopher.  The  poet  makes  him- 
self understood  by  human  generations  and  by  the  crowd; 
the  philosopher  addresses  himself  only  to  a  few  rare  minds. 
The  day  has  broken.  It  brings  with  it  dispersion  of  thought 
in  action.  I  feel  myself  de-magnetized,  pure  clairvoyance 
gives  place  to  study,  and  the  ethereal  depth  of  the  heaven 
of  contemplation  vanishes  before  the  glitter  of  finite 
things.  Is  it  to  be  regretted?  No.  But  it  proves  that 
the  hours  most  apt  for  philosophical  thought  are  those 
which  precede  the  dawn. 

February  10,  1853. — This  afternoon  I  made  an  excursion 
to  the  Saleve  with  my  particular  friends,  Charles  Heim, 
Edmond  Scherer,  Elie  Lecoultre,  and  Ernest  Naville. 
The  conversation  was  of  the  most  interesting  kind,  and 
prevented  us  from  noticing  the  deep  mud  which  hindered 
our  walking.  It  was  especially  Scherer,  Naville,  and  I 
who  kept  it  alive.  Liberty  in  God,  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity, new  publications  in  philosophy,  these  were  our 
three  subjects  of  conversation.  The  principle  result  icr 
me  was  an  excellent  exercise  in  dialectic  and  in  argumenta- 
tion with  solid  champions.  If  I  learned  nothing,  many  of 
my  ideas  gained  new  confirmation,  and  I  was  able  to  pene- 
trate more  deeply  into  the  minds  of  my  friends.  I  am 
much  nearer  to  Scherer  than  to  Naville,  but  froin  him 
also  I  am  in  some  degree  wenarated-  . 


48  AMIEV 8  JOURNAL. 

It  is  a  striking  fact,  not  unlike  the  changing  of  swords 
in  "Hamlet,"  tliat  the  abstract  minds,  those  which  move 
from  ideas  to  facts,  are  always  fighting  on  behalf  of  concrete 
reality;  while  the  concrete  minds,  which  move  from  facts 
to  ideas,  are  generally  the  champions  of  abstract  notions. 
Each  pretends  to  that  over  which  he  has  least  power;  each 
aims  instinctively  at  what  he  himself  lacks.  It  is  an  uncon- 
scious protest  against  the  incompleteness  of  each  separate 
nature.  We  all  tend  toward  that  which  we  possess  least  of, 
and  our  point  of  arrival  is  essentially  different  from  our 
point  of  departure.  The  promised  land  is  the  land  where 
one  is  not.  The  most  intellectual  of  natures  adopts  an 
ethical  theory  of  mind ;  the  most  moral  of  natures  has  an 
intellectual  theory  of  morals.  This  reflection  was  brought 
home  to  me  in  the  course  of  our  three  or  four  hours'  dis- 
cussion. Nothing  is  more  hidden  from  us  than  the  illusion 
which  lives  with  us  day  by  day,  and  our  greatest  illusion 
is  to  believe  that  we  are  what  we  think  ourselves  to  be. 

The  mathematical  intelligence  and  the  historical  intelli- 
gence (the  two  classes  of  intelligences)  can  never  under- 
stand each  othcx.  When  they  succeed  in  doing  so  as  to 
words,  they  dilfer  as  to  the  things  which  the  words  mean. 
At  the  botiom  of  every  discussion  of  detail  between  them 
reappears  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  ideas.  If  the  prob- 
lem is  not  present  to  them,  there  is  confusion;  if  it  is 
present  to  them,  there  is  separation.  They  only  agree  as 
to  the  goal — truth;  but  never  as  to  the  road,  the  method, 
and  the  criterion. 

Heim  represented  the  impartiality  of  consciousness, 
Naville  the  morality  of  consciousness,  Lecoultre  the  relig- 
ion of  consciousness,  Scherer  the  intelligence  of  conscious- 
ness, and  I  the  consciousness  of  consciousness.  A  common 
ground,  but  differing  individualites.  Discrimen  ingeniorum. 

What  charmed  me  most  in  this  long  discussion  was  the 
sense  of  mental  freedom  which  it  awakened  in  me.  To  be 
able  to  set  in  motion  the  greatest  subjects  of  thought  without 
any  sense  of  fatigue,  to  be  greater  than  the  world,  to  play  with 
one's  strength,  this  is  what  makes  the  well-being  of  intelli- 


A  MIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  4<> 

gence,  the  Olympic  festival  of  thought.  Habere,  non 
haberi.  There  is  an  equal  happiness  in  the  sense  of  recip- 
rocal confidence,  of  friendship,  and  esteem  in  the  midst  of 
conflict;  like  athletes,  we  embrace  each  other  before  and 
after  the  combat,  and  the  combat  is  but  a  deploying  of  the 
forces  of  free  and  equal  men. 

March  20,  1853. — I  sat  up  alone;  two  or  three  times  I 
paid  a  visit  to  the  children's  room.  It  seemed  to  me, 
young  mothers,  that  I  understood  you !  sleep  is  the  mystery 
of  life ;  there  is  a  profound  charm  in  this  darkness  broken 
by  the  tranquil  light  of  the  night-lamp,  and  in  this  silence 
measured  by  the  rhythmic  breathings  of  two  young  sleeping 
creatures.  It  was  brought  home  to  me  that  I  was  looking 
on  at  a  marvelous  operation  of  nature,  and  I  watched  it  in 
no  profane  spirit.  I  sat  silently  listening,  a  moved  and 
hushed  spectator  of  this  poetry  of  the  cradle,  this  ancient 
■  and  ever  new  benediction  of  the  family,  this  symbol  of 
creation,  sleeping  under  the  wing  of  God,  of  our  conscious- 
ness withdrawing  into  the  shade  that  it  may  rest  from  the 
burden  of  thought,  and  of  the  tomb,  that  divine  bed, 
where  the  soul  in  its  turn  rests  from  life.  To  sleep  is  to 
strain  and  purify  our  emotions,  to  deposit  the  mud  of  life, 
to  calm  the  fever  of  the  soul,  to  return  into  the  bosom  of 
maternal  nature,  thence  to  re-issue,  healed  and  strong. 
Sleep  is  a  sort  of  innocence  and  purification.  Blessed  be 
He  who  gave  it  to  the  poor  sons  of  men  as  the  sure  and 
faithful  companion  of  life,  our  daily  healer  and  consoler. 

April  27,  1853. — This  evening  I  read  the  treatise  by 
Nicole  so  much  admired  by  Mme.  de  Sevigne:  "Des 
moyens  de  conserver  la paix  avec  les  hommes."  Wisdom  so 
gentle  and  so  insinuating,  so  shrewd,  piercing,  and  yot 
humble,  which  divines  so  well  the  hidden  thoughts  and 
secrets  of  the  heart,  and  brings  them  all  into  the  sacred 
bondage  of  love  to  God  and  man,  how  good  and  delightful 
a  thing  it  is!  Everything  in  it  is  smooth,  even  well  put 
together,  well  thought  out,  but  no  display,  no  tinsel,  no 
worldly  ornaments  of  style.  The  moralist  forgets  himself 
and  in  us  appeals  only  to  the  conscience.  He  becomes  a 
confessor,  a  friend,  a  counaAlkit. 


50  AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL. 

May  11,  1853. — Psychology,  poetry,  philosophy,  history, 
and  science,  I  have  swept  rapidly  to-day  on  the  wings  of 
the  invisible  hippogrifiE  through  all  these  spheres  of 
thought.  But  the  general  impression  has  been  one  of 
tumult  and  anguish,  temptation  and  disquiet. 

I  love  to  plunge  deep  into  the  ocean  of  life;  but  it  is  not 
without  losing  sometimes  all  sense  of  the  axis  and  the  pole, 
without  losing  myself  and  feeling  the  consciousness  of  my 
own  nature  and  vocation  growing  faint  and  wavering. 
The  whirlwind  of  the  wandering  Jew  carries  me  away, 
tears  me  from  my  little  familiar  enclosure,  and  makes  me 
behold  all  the  empires  of  men.  In  my  voluntary  abandon- 
ment to  the  generality,  the  universal,  the  infinite,  my  parti- 
cular ego  evaporates  like  a  drop  of  water  in  a  furnace ;  it 
only  condenses  itself  anew  at  the  return  of  cold,  after  en- 
thusiasm has  died  out  and  the  sense  of  reality  has  returned. 
Alternate  expansion  and  condensation,  abandonment  and 
recovery  of  self,  the  conquest  of  the  world  to  be  pursued 
on  the  one  side,  the  deepening  of  consciousness  on  the 
other — such  is  the  play  of  the  inner  life,  the  march  of  the 
microcosmic  mind,  the  marriage  of  the  individual  soul  with 
the  universal  soul,  the  finite  with  the  infinite,  whence 
springs  the  intellectual  progress  of  man.  Other  betrothals 
unite  the  soul  to  God,  the  religious  consciousness  with  the 
'divine;  these  belong  to  the  history  of  the  will.  And  what 
precedes  will  is  feeling,  preceded  itself  by  instinct.  Man 
is  only  what  he  becomes — profound  truth;  but  he  becomes 
only  what  he  is,  truth  still  more  profound.  What  am  I? 
Terrible  question !  Problem  of  predestination,  of  birth,  of 
liberty,  there  lies  the  abyss.  And  yet  one  must  plunge 
into  it,  and  I  have  done  so.  The  prelude  of  Bach  I 
heard  this  evening  predisposed  me  to  it;  it  paints  the  soul 
tormented  and  appealing  and  finally  seizing  upon  God, 
and  possessing  itself  of  peace  and  the  infinite  with  an  all- 
prevailing  fervor  and  passion. 

May  14,  1853. — Third  quartet  concert.  It  was  short. 
Variations  for  piano  and  violin  by  Beethoven,  and  two 
^quartets,  not  more.     The  quartets  were  perfectly  clear  and 


AMIEV 8  JOURNAL.  6t 

easy  to  understand.  One  was  by  Mozart  and  the  other  by 
Beethoven,  so  that  I  could  compare  the  two  masters. 
Their  individuality  seemed  to  become  plain  to  me:  Mozart 
— grace,  liberty,  certainty,  freedom,  and  precision  of  style, 
and  exquisite  and  aristocratic  beauty,  serenity  of  soul,  the 
health  and  talent  of  the  master,  both  on  a  level  with  his 
genius;  Beethoven — more  pathetic,  more  passionate,  more 
torn  with  feeling,  more  intricate,  more  profound,  less  per- 
fect, more  the  slave  of  his  genius,  more  carried  away  by  his 
fancy  or  his  passion,  more  moving,  and  more  sublime  than 
Mozart.  Mozart  refreshes  you,  like  the  "  Dialogues"of  Plato ; 
he  respects  you,  reveals  to  you  your  strength,  gives  you 
freedom  a^id  balance.  Beethoven  seizes  upon  you ;  he  is 
more  tragic  and  oratorical,  while  Mozart  is  more  disinter- 
esi=*^d  and  poetical.  Mozart  is  more  Greek,  and  Beethoven 
m'Tc  Christian.  One  is  serene,  the  other  serious.  The 
fir't  is  stronger  than  destiny,  because  he  takes  life  less  pro- 
fo'indly;  the  second  is  less  strong,  because  he  has  dared 
te  measure  himself  against  deeper  sorrows.  His  talent  is 
Qci  always  equal  to  his  genius,  and  pathos  is  his  dominant 
feature,  as  perfection  is  that  of  Mozart.  In  Mozart  the 
bHance  of  the  whole  is  perfect,  and  art  triumphs ;  in  Bee- 
th-oven  feeling  governs  everything  and  emotion  troubles  his 
tt?t  in  proportion  as  it  deepens  it. 

July  26,  1853. — Why  do  I  find  it  easier  and  more  satis- 
fJ^^tory,  as  a  writer  of  verse,  to  compose  in  the  short  metres 
than  in  the  long  and  serious  ones?  Why,  in  general,  am  I 
better  fitted  for  what  is  difficult  than  for  what  is  easy? 
Always  for  the  same  reason.  I  cannot  bring  myself  to 
n^-ove  freely,  to  show  myself  without  a  veil,  to  act  on  my 
cm  account  and  act  seriously,  to  believe  in  and  assert  my- 
s*"lf,  whereas  a  piece  of  badinage  which  diverts  attention 
f'-om  myself  to  the  thing  in  hand,  from  the  feeling  to  the 
shill  of  the  writer,  puts  me  at  my  ease.  It  is  timidity 
vhich  is  at  the  bottom  of  it.  There  is  another  reason,  too 
—1  am  afraid  of  greatness,  I  am  not  afraid  of  ingenuity, 
•^.nd  distrustful  as  I  am  both  of  my  gift  and  my  instru- 
xnent,  I  like  to  reassure  myself  by  an  elaborate  practice  of : 


52  AMIBUS  JOURNAL. 

execution.  All  my  published  literary  essays,  therefore,  are 
little  else  than  studies,  games,  exercises  for  the  purpose  of 
testing  myself.  I  play  scales,  as  it  were;  I  run  up  and 
down  my  instrument,  I  train  my  hand  and  make  sure  of 
its  capacity  and  skill.  But  the  work  itself  remains  una- 
chie^^ed.  My  effort  expires,  and  satisfied  with  the  power  to 
act  I  never  arrive  at  the  will  to  act.  I  am  always  prepar- 
ing and  never  accomplishing,  and  my  energy  is  swallowed 
up  in  a  kind  of  barren  curiosity.  Timidity,  then,  and 
curiosity — these  are  the  two  obstacles  which  bar  against  me 
a  literary  career.  Nor  must  procrastination  be  forgotten. 
I  am  always  reserving  for  the  future  what  is  great,  seriouis, 
and  important,  and  meanwhile,  I  am  eager  to  exhaust  what 
is  pretty  and  trifling.  Sure  of  my  devotion  to  things  that 
are  vast  and  profound,  I  am  always  lingering  in  their  con- 
traries lest  I  should  neglect  them.  Serious  at  bottom,  I 
am  frivolous  in  appearance.  A  lover  of  thought,  I  seem 
to  care  above  all,  for  expression ;  I  keep  the  substance  for 
myself,  and  reserve  the  form  for  others.  So  that  the  net 
result  of  my  timidity  is  that  I  never  treat  the  public  seri- 
ously, and  that  I  only  show  myself  to  it  in  what  is  amus- 
ing, enigmatical,  or  capricious;  the  result  of  my  curiosity 
is  that  everything  tempts  me,  the  shell  as  well  as  the 
mountain,  and  that  I  lose  myself  in  endless  research ;  while 
the  habit  of  procrastination  keeps  me  forever  at  prelimina- 
ries and  antecedents,  and  production  itself  is  never  even 
begun. 

But  if  that  is  the  fact,  the  fact  might  be  different.  I 
understand  myself,  but  I  do  not  approve  myself. 

August  1,  1853. — I  have  just  finished  Pelletan's  book, 
"  Profession  de  f oi  du  dix-nenvi^me  S^icle. "  It  is  a  fine  book 
Only  one  thing  is  wanting  to  it — the  idea  of  evil.  It  is  a 
kind  of  supplement  to  the  theory  of  Condorcet — indefinite 
perfectibility,  man  essentially  good,  life,  which  is  a  physi- 
ological notion,  dominating  virtue,  duty,  and  holiness,  in 
short,  a  non-ethical  conception  of  history,  liberty  identified 
with  nature,  the  natural  man  taken  for  the  whole  man. 
The  aspirations  which  such  a  book  represents  are  generous 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  53. 

and  poetical,  but  in  the  first  place  dangerous,  since  they 
lead  to  an  absolute  confidence  in  instinct;  and  in  the  second, 
credulous  and  unpractical,  for  they  set  before  us  a  mere 
dream  man,  and  throw  a  veil  over  both  present  and  past 
reality.  The  book  is  at  once  the  plea  justificatory  of  prog- 
ress, conceived  as  fatal  and  irresistible,  and  an  enthusiastic 
hymn  to  the  triumph  of  humanity.  It  is  earnest,  but 
morally  superficial;  poetical,  but  fanciful  and  untrue.  It 
confounds  the  progress  of  the  race  with  the  progress  of  the 
individual,  the  progress  of  civilization  with  the  advance  of 
the  inner  life.  Why?  Because  its  criterion  is  quantita- 
tive, that  is  to  say,  purely  exterior  (having  regard  to  the 
wealth  of  life),  and  not  qualitative  (the  goodness  of  life). 
Always  the  same  tendency  to  take  the  appearance  for  the 
thing,  the  form  for  the  substance,  the  law  for  the  essence, 
always  the  same  absence  of  moral  personality,  the  same 
obtuseness  of  conscience,  which  has  never  recognized 
sin  present  in  the  will,  which  places  evil  outside  of  man, 
moralizes  from  outside,  and  transforms  to  its  own  liking  the 
whole  lesson  of  history !  •  What  is  at  fault  is  the  philo- 
sophic superficiality  of  France,  which  she  owes  to  her  fatal 
notion  of  religion,  itself  due  to  a  life  fashioned  by  Cathol- 
icism  and  by  absolute  monarchy. 

Catholic  thought  cannot  conceive  of  personality  as 
supreme  and  conscious  of  itself.  Its  boldness  and  its  weak- 
ness come  from  one  and  the  same  cause — from  an  absence- 
of  the  sense  of  responsibility,  from  that  vassal  state  of  con- 
science which  knows  only  slavery  or  anarchy,  which  pro- 
claims but  does  not  obey  the  law,  because  the  law  is  outside 
it,  not  within  it.  Another  illusion  is  that  of  Quinet  and 
Michelet,  who  imagine  it  possible  to  come  out  of  Cathol- 
icism without  entering  into  any  other  positive  form  of 
religion,  and  whose  idea  is  to  fight  Catholicism  by  philos- 
ophy, a  philosophy  which  is,  after  all.  Catholic  at  bottom, 
since  it  springs  from  anti-Catholic  reaction.  The  mind, 
and  the  conscience,  which  have  been  formed  by  Catholi- 
cism, are  powerless  to  rise  to  any  other  form  of  religion. 
From  Catholicism,  as  from  Epicureanism  there  is  no  re- 
turn. 


54  AM] EL'S  JOURNAL. 

October  11,  1853. — My  third  day  at  Turin,  is  now  over. 
I  have  been  able  to  penetrate  farther  than  ever  before  into 
the  special  genius  of  this  town  and  people.  I  have  felt  it 
live,  have  realized  it  little  by  little,  as  my  intuition  be- 
came more  distinct.  That  is  what  I  care  for  most:  to 
seize  the  soul  of  things,  the  soul  of  a  nation ;  to  live  the 
objective  life,  the  life  outside  self;  to  find  my  way  into 
a  new  moral  country.  I  long  to  assume  the  citizenship  of 
this  unknown  world,  to  enrich  myself  with  thij  fresh  form 
of  existence,  to  feel  it  from  within,  to  link  myself  to  it, 
and  to  reproduce  it  sympathetically ;  this  is  the  end  and  the 
rewarct  of  my  efforts.  To-day  the  problem  grew  clear  to 
me  a«  I  stood  on  the  terrace  of  the  military  hospital,  in 
full  view  of  the  Alps,  the  weather  fresh  and  clear  in  spite 
of  a  stormy  sky.  Such  an  intuition  after  all  is  nothing 
out  a  synthesis  wrought  by  instinct,  a  synthesis  to  which 
everything — streets,  houses,  landscape,  accent,  dialect, 
physiognomies,  history,  and  habits  contribute  their  share. 
I  might  call  it  the  ideal  integration  of  a  people  or  its  re- 
duction to  the  generating  point,'  or  an  entering  into  its 
consciousness.  This  generating  point  explains  everything 
else,  art,  religion,  history,  politics,  manners;  and  without 
it  nothing  can  be  explained.  The  ancients  realized  their 
consciousness  in  the  national  God.  Modern  nationalities, 
more  complicated  and  less  artistic,  are  more  difficult  to 
decipher.  "What  one  seeks  for  in  them  is  the  d(Bmon,  the 
fatum,  the  inner  genius,  the  mission,  the  primitive  disposi- 
tion, both  what  there  is  desire  for  and  what  there  is  power 
for,  the  force  in  them  and  its  limitations. 

A  pure  and  life-giving  freshness  of  thought  and  of  the 
spiritual  life  seemed  to  play  about  me,  borne  on  the  breeze 
descending  from  the  Alps.  I  breathed  an  atmosphere  of 
spiritual  freedom,  and  I  hailed  with  emotion  and  rapture 
the  mountains  whence  was  wafted  to  me  this  feeling  of 
strength  and  purity.  A  thousand  sensations,  thoughts, 
and  analogies  crowded  upon  me.  History,  too,  the  history 
of  the  sub- Alpine  countries,  from  the  Ligurians  to  Hanni- 
bal, from  Hannibal  to  Charlemagne ,  from  Charlemagne  to 


AMIEVS  JOURNAL.  55 

Kapoleon,  passed  through  my  mind.  All  the  possible  points 
of  view,  were,  so  to  speak,  piled  upon  each  other,  and  one 
caught  glimpses  of  some  eccentrically  across  others.  I  was 
enjoying  and  I  was  learning.  Sight  passed  into  vision  without 
a  trace  of  hallucination,  and  the  landscape  was  my  guide, 
my  Virgil. 

All  this  made  me  very  sensible  of  the  difference  between 
me  and  the  majority  of  travelers,  all  of  whom  have  a 
special  object,  and  content  themselves  with  one  thing  or 
'with  several,  while  I  desire  all  or  nothing,  and  am  forever 
straining  toward  the  total,  whether  of  all  possible  objects, 
or  of  all  the  elements  present  in  the  reality.  In  other 
words,  what  I  desire  is  the  sum  of  all  desires,  and  what  I 
seek  to  know  is  the  sum  of  all  different  kinds  of  knowl- 
edge. Always  the  complete,  the  absolute;  the  teres  atque 
rotutidum,  sphericity,  non-resignation. 

October  27,  1853.— I  thank  Thee,  my  God,  for  the  hour 
that  I  have  just  passed  in  Thy  presence.  Thy  will  was 
clear  to  me;  I  measured  my  faults,  counted  my  griefs,  and 
felt  Thy  goodness  toward  me.  I  realized  my  own  nothing- 
ness. Thou  gavest  me  Thy  peace.  In  bitterness  there  is. 
sweetness;  in  affliction,  joy;  in  submission,  strength; 
in  the  God  who  punishes,  the  God  who  loves.  To  lose 
one's  life  that  one  may  gain  it,  to  offer  it  that  one  may 
receive  it,  to  possess  nothing  that  one  may  conquer  all,  to- 
renounce  self  that  God  may  give  Himself  to  us,  how  im- 
possible a  problem,  and  how  sublime  a  reality!  No  one 
truly  knows  happiness  who  has  not  suffered,  and  the  re- 
deemed aj'e  happier  than  the  elect. 

(Same  day.) — The  divine  miracle  j^ar  excellence  consists 
surely  in  the  apotheosis  of  grief,  the  transfiguration  of  evil 
by  good.  The  work  of  creation  finds  its  consummation, 
and  the  eternal  will  of  the  infinite  mercy  finds  its  fulfill- 
ment only  in  the  restoration  of  the  free  creature  to  God 
and  of  an  evil  world  to  goodness,  through  love.  Every 
soul  in  which  conversion  has  taken  place  is  a  symbol  of  the 
history  of  the  world.  To  be  happy,  to  possess  eternal  life, 
to  be  in  God,  to  be  saved,  all  these  are  the  same.     All 


4J6  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

alike  mean  the  solution  of  the  problem,  the  aim  of  exist- 
ence. And  happiness  is  cumulative,  as  misery  may  be. 
An  eternal  growth  is  an  unchangeable  peace,  an  ever  pro- 
founder  depth  of  apprehension,  a  possession  constantly 
more  intense  and  more  spiritual  of  the  joy  of  heaven — this 
is  happiness.  Happiness  has  no  limits,  because  God  has 
neither  bottom  nor  bounds,  and  because  happiness  is  noth- 
ing but  the  conquest  of  God  through  love. 

The  center  of  life  is  neither  in  thought  nor  in  feeling, 
nor  in  will,  nor  even  in  consciousness,  so  far  as  it  thinks, 
feels,  or  wishes.  For  moral  truth  may  have  been  pene- 
trated and  possessed  in  all  these  ways,  and  escape  us  still. 
Deeper  even  than  consciousness  there  is  our  being  itself, 
our  very  substance,  our  nature.  Only  those  truths 
which  have  entered  into  this  last  region,  which  have  be- 
come ourselves,  become  spontaneous  and  involuntary,  in- 
stinctive and  unconscious,  are  really  our  life — that  is  to  say 
something  more  than  our  property.  So  long  as  we  are  able 
to  distinguish  any  space  whatever  between  the  truth  and  us 
we  remain  outside  it.  The  thought,  the  feeling,  the 
desire,  the  consciousness  of  life,  are  not  yet  quite  life. 
But  peace  and  repose  can  nowhere  be  found  except  in  life, 
and  in  eternal  life  and  the  eternal  life  is  the  divine  life,  is 
■God.  To  become  divine  is  then  the  aim  of  life :  then  only  can 
truth  be  said  to  be  ours  beyond  the  possibility  of  loss,  because 
it  is  no  longer  outside  us,  nor  even  in  us,  but  we  are  it,and  it  is 
we ;  we  ourselves  are  a  truth,  a  will,  a  work  of  God.  Liberty 
has  become  nature ;  the  creature  is  one  with  its  creator — one 
through  love.  It  is  what  it  ought  to  be;  its  education  is 
finished,  and  its  final  happiness  begins.  The  sun  of  time 
declines  and  the  light  of  eternal  blessedness  arises. 

Our  fleshly  hearts  may  call  this  mysticism.  It  is  the 
mysticism  of  Jesus:  "I  am  one  with  my  Father;  ye  shall 
be  one  with  me.     We  will  be  one  with  you." 


Do  not  despise  your  situation;  in  it  you  must  act,  suffer, 
and  conquer.  From  every  point  on  earth  we  are  equallv 
near  to  heaven  and  to  the  infinite. 


AMIEr 8  JOURNAL.  5'J 

There  are  two  states  or  conditions  of  pride.  The  first  is 
one  of  self -approval,  the  second  one  of  self-contempt. 
Pride  is  seen  probably  at  its  purest  in  the  last. 


It  is  by  teaching  that  we  teach  ourselves,  by  relating 
that  we  observe,  by  affirming  that  we  examine,  by  show- 
ing that  "we  look,  by  writing  that  we  think,  by  pumping 
that  we  draw  water  into  the  well. 


February  1,  1854. —  A  walk.  The  atmosphere  incredi- 
bly pure,  a  warm  caressing  gentleness  in  the  sunshine — joy 
in  one's  whole  being.  Seated  motionless  upon  a  bench  on 
the  Tranchees,  beside  the  slopes  clothed  with  moss  and 
tapestried  with  green,  I  passed  some  intense  delicious  mo- 
ments, allowing  great  elastic  waves  of  music,  wafted  to  me 
from  a  military  band  on  the  terrace  of  St.  Antoine,  to  surge 
and  bound  through  me.  Every  way  I  was  happy,  as  idler, 
as  painter,  as  poet.  Forgotten  impressions  of  childhood 
and  youth  came  back  to  me — all  those  indescribable  effects 
wrought  by  color,  shadow,  sunlight,  green  hedges,  and 
songs  of  birds,  upon  the  soul  just  opening  to  poetry.  I  be- 
came again  young,  wondering,  and  simple,  as  candor  and 
ignorance  are  simple.  I  abandoned  myself  to  life  and  to 
nature,  and  they  cradled  me  with  an  infinite  gentleness. 
To  open  one's  heart  in  purity  to  this  ever  pure  nature,  to 
allow  this  immortal  life  of  things  to  penetrate  into  one's 
soul,  is  at  the  same  time  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  God. 
Sensation  may  be  h  prayer,  and  self-abandonment  an  act  of 
devotion. 

February  18,  1854. — Everything  tends  to  become  fixed, 
solidified,  and  crystallized  in  this  French  tongue  of  ours, 
which  seeks  form  and  not  substance,  the  result  and  not 
its  formation,  what  is  seen  rather  than  what  is  thought, 
the  outside  rather  than  the  inside. 

We  like  the  accomplished  end  and  not  the  pursuit  of  the 
end,  the  goal  and  not  the  road,  in  short,  ideas  ready-made 
and  bread  ready-baked,  the  reverse  of  Lessing's  principle. 
What  we    Iook    for    above    all   are    conclusions.      This 


68  AMI  EL' 8  JOURNAL. 

clearness  of  the  "ready-made"  is  a  superficial  clearness- 
physical,  outward,  solar  clearness,  so  to  speak,  but  in  the 
absence  of  a  sense  for  origin  and  genesis  it  is  the  clearness 
of  the  incomprehensible,  the  clearness  of  opacity,  the  clear- 
ness of  the  obscure.  AVe  are  always  trifling  on  the  surface. 
Our  temper  is  formal — that  is  to  say,  frivolous  and  ma- 
':erial,  or  rather  artistic  and  not  philosophical.  For  what 
it  seeks  is  the  figure,  the  fashion  and  manner  of  things, 
not  their  deepest  life,  their  soul,  theit-  secret. 

March  16,  1854.  (From  Veevay  to  Geneva.) — What 
message  had  this  lake  for  me,  with  its  sad  serenity,  its 
soft  and  even  tranquility,  in  which  was  mirrored  the  cold  mo- 
notonous pallor  of  mountains  and  clouds?  That  disen- 
chanted disillusioned  life  may  still  be  traversed  by  duty,lit  by 
a  memory  of  heaven.  I  was  visited  by  a  clear  and  profound 
intuition  of  the  flight  of  things,  of  the  fatality  of  all  life,  of 
the  melancholy  which  is  below  the  surface  of  all  exist- 
ence, but  also  of  that  deepest  nepth  which  subsists  forever 
beneath  the  fleeting  wave. 

December  17,  1854. — When  we  are  doing  nothing  in 
particular,  it  is  then  that  we  are  living  through  all  our  be- 
ing; and  when  we  cease  to  add  to  our  growth  it  is  only  that 
we  may  ripen  and  possess  ourselves.  Will  is  suspended, 
but  nature  and  time  are  always  active  and  if  our  life  is  no 
longer  our  work,  the  work  goes  on  none  the  less.  With 
us,  without  us,  or  in  spite  of  us,  our  existence  travels 
through  its  appointed  phases,  our  invisible  Psyche  weaves 
the  silk  of  its  chrysalis,  our  destiny  fulfills  itself,  and  all 
the  hours  of  life  work  together  toward  that  flowering  time 
which  we  call  death.  This  activity,  then,  is  inevitable 
and  fatal;  sleep  and  idleness  do  not  interrupt  it,  but  it 
nay  become  free  and  moral,  a  joy  instead  of  a  terror. 


Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  a  man  than  the  manner 
in  which  he  behaves  toward  fools. 


It  costs  us  a  great  deal  of  trouble  not  to  be  of  the  same 
opinion  as  our  self-love,  and  not  to  be  ready  to  believe  in 
the  good  taste  of  those  who  believe  in  our  merits. 


A  MI  EL'S  JO  UBNAL.  59 

Does  not  true  humility  consist  in  accepting  one's  infirmity 
!as  a  trial,  and  one's  evil  disposition  as  a  cross,  in  sacrificing 
all  one's  pretensions  and  ambitions,  even  those  of  con- 
science? True  humility  is  contentment. 


A  man  only  understands  that  of  which  he  has  already 
the  beginnings  in  himself. 


Let  us  be  true:  this  is  the  highest  maxim  of  art  and 
>of  life,  the  secret  of  eloquence  and  of  virtue,  and  of  all 
moral  authority. 


March  28,  1855. — Not  a  blade  of  grass  but  has  a  story  to 
"tell,  not  a  heart  but  has  its  romance,  not  a  life  which  does 
not  hide  a  secret  which  is  either  its  thorn  or  its  spur. 
Everywhere  grief,  hope,  comedy,  tragedy;  even  under  the 
petrifaction  of  old  age,  as  in  the  twisted  forms  of  fossils, 
we  may  discover  the  agitations  and  tortures  of  youth. 
This  thought  is  the  magic  wand  of  poets  and  of  preachers: 
it  strips  the  scales  from  our  fleshly  eyes,  and  gives  us  a 
'dear  view  into  human  life;  it  opens  to  the  ear  a  world  of 
unknown  melodies,  and  makes  us  understand  the  thousand 
languages  of  nature.  Thwarted  love  makes  a  man  a  poly- 
glot, and  grief  transforms  him  into  a  diviner  and  a  sorcerer- 
April  16,  1855. — I  realized  this  morning  the  prodigious 
effect  of  climate  on  one's  state  of  mind.  I  was  Italian  or 
Spanish.  In  this  blue  and  limpid  air,  and  under  this 
southern  sun,  the  very  walls  smile  at  you.  All  the  chest- 
nut trees  were  en  fete;  with  their  glistening  buds  shining 
like  little  flames  at  the  curved  ends  of  the  branches,  they 
iv^ere  the  candelabra  of  the  spring  decking  the  festival  of 
eternal  nature.  How  young  everything  was,  how  kindly,  how 
gracious !  the  moist  freshness  of  the  grass,  the  transparent 
shadows  in  the  courtyards,  the  strength  of  the  old  cathedral 
towers,  the  white  edges  of  the  roads.  I  felt  myself  a  child ; 
the  sap  of  life  mounted  again  into  my  veins  as  it  does  in 
plants.  How  sweet  a  thing  is  a  little  simple  enjoyment! 
And  now,  a  brass  band  which  has  stopped  in  the  street 


f,0  ^  MIRUS  JO  TJRNAL. 

makes  my  heart  leap  as  it  did  at  eighteen.  Thanks  be  cc 
God;  there  have  been  so  many  weeks  and  months  when  I 
thought  myself  an  old  man.  Come  poetry,  nature,  youth, 
and  love,  knead  my  life  again  with  your  fairy  hands; 
weave  round  me  once  more  your  immortal  spells;  sing  your 
siren  melodies,  make  me  drink  of  the  cup  of  immortality, 
lead  me  back  to  the  Olympus  of  the  soul.  Or  rather,  no 
paganism  I  God  of  joy  and  of  grief,  do  with  me  what  Thou 
wilt ;  grief  is  good,  and  joy  is  good  also.  Thou  art  leading 
me  now  through  joy.  I  take  it  from  Thy  hands,  and  I  give 
Thee  thanks  for  it. 

April  17,  1855. — The  weather  is  still  incredibly  brilliant, 
warm,  and  clear.  The  day  is  full  of  the  singing  of  birds, 
the  night  is  full  of  stars,  nature  has  become  all  kindness, 
and  it  is  a  kindness  clothed  upon  with  splendor. 

For  nearly  two  hours  have  I  been  lost  in  the  contem- 
plation of  this  magnificent  spectacle.  I  felt  myself  in  the 
temple  of  the  infinite,  in  the  presence  of  the  worlds,  God's 
guest  in  this  vast  nature.  The  stars  wandering  in  the  pale 
ether  drew  me  far  away  from  earth.  What  peace  beyond 
the  power  of  words,  what  dews  of  life  eternal,  they  shed 
on  the  adoring  soul !  I  felt  the  earth  floating  like  a  boat 
in  this  blue  ocean.  Such  deep  and  tranquil  delight  nour- 
ishes the  whole  man,  it  purifies  and  ennobles.  I  surren- 
dered myself,  I  was  all  gratitude  and  docility. 

April  21,  J  855. — I  have  been  reading  a  great  deal :  ethnog- 
raphy, comparative  anatomy,  cosmical  systems.  I  have 
traversed  the  universe  from  the  deepest  depths  of  the 
empyrean  to  the  peristaltic  movements  of  the  atoms  in  the 
elementary  cell.  I  have  felt  myself  expanding  in  the  in- 
finite, and  enfranchised  in  spirit  from  the  bounds  of  time 
and  space,  able  to  trace  back  the  whole  boundless  creation 
to  a  point  without  dimensions,  and  seeing  the  vast  multi- 
tude of  suns,  of  milky  ways,  of  stars,  and  nebulae,  all  exist- 
ent in  the  point. 

And  on  all  sides  stretched  mysteries,  marvels  and  prod- 
igies, without  limit,  without  number,  and  without  end. 
I  felt  the  unfathomable  thought  of  which  the  universe  is 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  61 

the  symbol  live  and  burn  within  me;  I  touched,  proved, 
tasted,  embraced  m^y  nothingness  and  my  immensity;  I 
kissed  the  hem  of  the  garments  of  God,  and  gave  Him 
thanks  for  being  Spirit  and  for  being  life.  Such  moments 
are  glimpses  of  the  divine.  They  make  one  conscious  of 
one's  immortality;  they  bring  home  to  one  that  an  eternity 
is  not  too  much  for  the  study  of  the  thoughts  and  works 
of  the  eternal;  they  awaken  in  us  an  adoring  ecstasy  and 
the  ardent  humility  of  love. 

May  23,  1855. — Every  hurtful  passion  draws  us  to  it,  as 
an  abyss  does,  by  a  kind  of  vertigo.  Feebleness  of  will 
brings  about  weakness  of  head,  and  the  abyss  in  spite  of  its 
horror,  comes  to  fascinate  us,  as  though  it  were  a  place  of 
refuge.  Terrible  danger!  For  this  abyss  is  within  us;  this 
gulf,  open  like  the  vast  jaws  of  an  infernal  serpent  bent  on 
devouring  us,  is  in  the  depth  of  our  own  being,  and  our 
liberty  floats  over  this  void,  which  is  always  seeking  to 
swallow  it  up.  Our  only  talisman  lies  in  that  concentra" 
tion  of  moral  force  which  we  call  conscience,  that  small 
inextinguishable  flame  of  which  the  light  is  duty  and  the 
warmth  love.  This  little  flame  should  be  the  star  of  our 
life ;  it  alone  can  guide  our  trembling  ark  across  the  tu- 
mult of  the  great  waters;  it  alone  can  enable  us  to  escape 
the  temptations  of  the  sea,  the  storms  and  the  monsters 
which  are  the  offspring  of  night  and  the  deluge.  Faith 
in  God,  in  a  holy,  merciful,  fatherly  God,  is  the  divine  ray 
which  kindles  this  flame. 

How  deeply  I  feel  the  profound  and  terrible  poetry  of 
all  these  primitive  terrors  from  which  have  issued  the  vari- 
ous theogonies  of  the  world,  and  how  it  all  grows  clear  to 
me,  and  becomes  a  symbol  of  the  one  great  unchang- 
ing thought,  the  thought  of  God  about  the  universe' 
How  present  and  sensible  to  my  inner  sense  is  the  unity  ol 
everything !  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  able  to  pierce  to  the 
sublime  motive  which,  in  all  the  infinite  spheres  of  exist- 
ence, and  through  all  the  modes  of  spac-e  and  time,  every 
created  form  reproduces  and  sings  within  the  bond  of  an 
eternal  harmony.     From  the  infernal  shades  I  feel  myself 


62  AMI  EL'S  JO  trJiNA  L. 

mounting  toward  the  regions  of  light;  my  flight  across 
chaos  finds  its  rest  in  paradise.  Heaven,  hell,  the  world, 
are  within  ns.     Man  is  the  great  abyss. 

July  27,  1855. — So  life  passes  away,  tossed  like  a 
boat  by  the  waves  up  and  down,  hither  and  thither, 
drenched  by  the  spray,  stained  by  the  foam,  now  thrown 
upon  the  bank,  now  drawn  back  again  according  to  the 
endless  caprice  of  the  water.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  life  of 
the  heart  and  the  passions,  the  life  which  Spinoza  and  the 
stoics  reprove,  and  which  is  the  exact  opposite  of  that 
serene  and  contemplative  life,  always  equable  like  the  star- 
light, in  which  man  lives  at  peace,  and  sees  everything 
under  its  eternal  aspect;  the  opposite  also  of  the  life  of  con- 
science, in  which  God  alone  speaks,  and  all  self-will  sur- 
renders itself  to  His  will  made  manifest. 

I  pass  from  one  to  another  of  these  three  existences, 
which  are  equally  known  to  me;  but  this  very  mobility 
deprives  me  of  the  advantages  of  each.  For  my  heart  is 
worn  with  scruples,  the  soul  in  me  cannot  crush  the  needs 
of  the  heart,  and  the  conscience  is  troubled  and  no  longer 
knows  how  to  distinguish,  in  the  chaos  of  contradictory 
inclinations,  the  voice  of  duty  or  the  will  of  God.  The 
want  of  simple  faitlx,  the  indecision  which  springs  from 
distrust  of  self,  tend  to  make  all  my  personal  life  a  matter 
of  doubt  and  uncertainty.  I  am  afraid  of  the  subjective 
life,  and  recoil  from  every  enterprise,  demand,  or  promise 
which  may  oblige  me  to  realize  myself;  I  feel  a  terror  of 
action,  and  am  only  at  ease  in  the  impersonal,  disinter- 
ested, and  objective  life  of  thought.  The  reason  seems 
to  be  timidity,  and  the  timidity  springs  from  the  exces- 
sive development  of  the  reflective  power  which  has  almost 
destroyed  in  me  all  spontaneity,  impulse,  and  instinct, 
and  therefore  all  boldness  and  confidence.  Whenever  I 
am  forced  to  act,  1  see  cause  for  error  and  repentance  every- 
where, everywhere  hidden  threats  and  masked  vexations. 
From  a  child  I  have  been  liable  to  the  disease  of  irony,  and 
that  it  may  not  be  altogether  crushed  by  destiny, 
my  nature  seems  to  have  armed  itself  with  a  caution 


AMlEUa  JOURNAL.  63 

strong  enough  to  prevail  against  any  of  life's  blandish- 
ments. It  is  just  this  strength  which  is  my  weakness.  I 
have  a  horror  of  being  duped,  above  all,  duped  by  myself, 
and  I  would  rather  cut  myself  off  from  all  life's  joys  than 
deceive  or  be  deceived.  Humiliation,  then,  is  the  sorrow 
which  I  fear  the  most,  and  therefore  it  would  seem  as  if 
pride  were  the  deepest  rooted  of  my  faults. 

This  may  be  logical,  but  it  is  not  the  truth :  it  seemr 
to  me  that  it  is  really  distrust,  incurable  doubt  of  th'. 
future,  a  sense  of  the  justice  but  not  of  the  goodness  of 
God — in  short,  unbelief,  which  is  my  misfortune  and  my 
sin.  Every  act  is  a  hostage  delivered  over  to  avenging 
destiny — there  i^  the  instinctive  belief  which  chills  and 
freezes ;  every  act  is  a  pledge  confided  to  a  fatherly  prov- 
idence, there  is  the  belief  which  calms. 

Pain  seems  to  me  a  punishro.ent  and  not  a  mercy :  this  is 
why  I  have  a  secret  horror  of  it.  And  as  I  feel  myself 
vulnerable  at  all  points,  and  everywhere  accessible  to  pain, 
I  prefer  to  remain  motionless,  like  a  timid  child,  who,  left 
alone  in  his  father's  laboratory,  dares  not  touch  any- 
thing for  fear  of  springs,  explosions,  and  catastrophes, 
which  may  burst  from  every  corner  at  the  least  movement 
of  his  inexperienced  hand?.  I  have  trust  in  God  directly 
and  as  revealed  in  nature,  but  I  have  a  deep  distrust  of  all 
free  and  evil  agents.  I  feel  or  foresee  evil,  moral  and 
physical,  as  the  conseqoence  of  every  error,  fault,  or  sin, 
and  I  am  ashamed  of  pain. 

At  bottom,  is  it  not  a  mere  boundless  self-love,  the 
purism  of  perfection,  an  incapacity  to  accept  our  human 
condition,  a  tacit  protest  against  the  order  of  the  world, 
which  lies  at  the  root  of  my  inertia  ?  It  means  all  or  noth- 
ing, a  vast  ambition  made  inactive  by  disgust,  a  yearning 
that  cannot  be  uttered  for  the  ideal,  joined  with  an  of- 
ended  dignity  and  a  wounded  pride  which  will  have  noth- 
ing to  say  to  what  they  consider  beneath  them.  It  springs 
from  the  ironical  temper  which  refuses  to  take  either  self 
or  reality  seriously,  because  it  is  forever  comparing  both 
with  the  dimly-seen  infinite  of  its  dreams.     It  is  a  statfi  of 


64  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

mental  reservation  in  which  one  lends  one's  self  to  circnm 
stances  for  form's  sake,  but  refuses  to  recognize  them  in 
one's  heart  because  one  cannot  see  the  necessity  or  the  di- 
vine order  in  them.  I  am  disinterested  because  I  am  in* 
different;  I  have  nothing  to  say  against  what  is,  and  yet 
I  am  never  satisfied.  I  am  too  weak  to  conquer,  and  yet  I 
Iwill  not  be  conquered — it  is  the  isolation  of  the  disen- 
chanted soul,  which  has  put  even  hope  away  from  it. 

But  even  this  is  a  trial  laid  upon  one.  Its  providential 
purpose  is  no  doubt  to  lead  one  to  that  true  renunciation  of 
which  charity  is  the  sign  and  symbol.  It  is  when  one 
expects  nothing  more  for  one's  self  that  one  is  able  to  love. 
To  do  good  to  men  because  we  love  them,  to  use  every 
talent  we  have  so  as  to  please  the  Father  from  whom  we 
hold  it  for  His  service,  there  is  no  other  way  of  reaching 
and  curing  this  deep  discontent  with  life  which  hides  itself 
under  an  appearance  of  indifference. 

September  4,  1855. — In  the  government  of  the  soul  the 
parliamentary  form  succeeds  the  monarchical.  Good 
sense,  conscience,  desire,  reason,  the  present  and  the  past, 
the  old  man  and  the  new,  prudence  and  generosity,  take 
up  their  parable  in  turn;  the  reign  of  argument  begins; 
chaos  replaces  order,  and  darkness  light.  Simple  will  rep- 
resents the  autocratic  regime^  interminable  discussion  the 
deliberate  regime  of  the  soul.  The  one  is  preferable  from 
the  theoretical  point  of  view,  the  other  from  the  practical. 
Knowledge  and  action  are  their  two  respective  advantages. 
.  But  the  best  of  all  would  be  to  be  able  to  realize  three 
powers  in  the  soul.  Besides  the  man  of  counsel  we  want 
the  man  of  action  and  the  man  of  judgment.  In  me,  re- 
flection comes  to  no  useful  end,  because  it  is  forever  return- 
ing upon  itself,  disputing  and  debating.  I  am  wanting  in 
both  the  general  who  commands  and  the  judge  who 
decides. 

Analysis  is  dangerous  if  it  overrules  the  synthetic  fac- 
ulty; reflection  is  to  be  feared  if  it  destroys  our  power  of 
intuition,  and  inquiry  is  fatal  if  it  supplants  faith.  De- 
composition becomes  deadly  when  it  surpasses  in  strength 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  65 

the  combining  and  constructive  energies  of  life,  and  the 
separate  action  of  the  powers  of  the  soul  tends  to  mere 
disintegration  and  destruction  as  soon  as  it  becomes  impos- 
sible to  bring  them  to  bear  as  one  undivided  force.  When 
the  sovereign  abdicates  anarchy  begins. 

It  is  just  here  that  my  danger  lies.  Unity  of  life,  of 
force,  of  action,  of  expression,  is  becoming  impossible  to 
me;  I  am  legion,  division,  analysis,  and  reflection;  the 
passion  for  dialectic,  for  fine  distinctions,  absorbs  and 
weakens  me.  The  point  which  I  have  reached  seems  to  be 
explained  by  a  too  restless  search  for  perfection,  by  the 
abuse  of  the  critical  faculty,  and  by  an  unreasonable  dis- 
trust of  first  impulses,  first  thoughts,  first  words.  Unity 
and  simplicity  of  being,  confidence,  and  spontaneity  of  life, 
are  drifting  out  of  my  reach,  and  this  is  why  I  can  no 
longer  act. 

Give  up,  then,  this  trying  to  know  all,  to  embrace  all. 
Learn  to  limit  yourself,  to  content  yourself  with  some 
definite  thing,  and  some  definite  work;  dare  to  be  what 
you  are,  and  learn  to  resign  with  a  good  grace  all  that  you 
are  not,  and  to  believe  in  your  own  individuality.  Self- 
distrust  is  destroying  you ;  trust,  surrender,  abandon  your- 
self; "believe  and  thou  shalt  be  healed."  Unbelief  is 
death,  and  depression  and  self -satire  are  alike  unbelief. 


From  the  point  of  view  of  happiness,  the  problem  of  life 
is  insoluble,  for  it  is  our  highest  aspirations  which  pre- 
vent us  from  being  happy.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
duty,  there  is  the  same  difficulty,  for  the  fulfillment  of 
duty  brings  peace,  not  happiness.  It  is  divine  love,  the 
love  of  the  holiest,  the  possession  of  God  by  faith,  which 
solves  the  difficulty;  for  if  sacrifice  has  itself  become  a  joy, 
a  lasting,  growing  and  imperishable  joy — the  soul  is  then 
secure  of  an  all-sufficient  and  unfailing  nourishment. 


January  21,  1856. — Yesterday  seems  to  me  as  far  off  as 
though  it  were  last  year.  My  memory  holds  nothing  more 
of  the  past  than  its  general  plan,  just  as  my  eye  perceives 


66  AMIEL'8  JOURNAL. 

nothing  more  in  the  starry  heaven.  It  is  no  more  possible^ 
for  me  to  recover  one  of  my  days  from  the  depths  of  mem- 
ory than  if  it  were  a  glass  of  water  poured  into  a  lake;  it 
is  not  so  much  a  lost  thing  as  a  thing  melted  and  fused;  the 
individual  has  returned  into  the  whole.  The  diV^isions  of  time 
are  categories  which  have  no  power  to  mold  my  life,  and 
leave  no  more  lasting  impression  than  lines  traced  by  a 
stick  in  water.  My  life,  my  individuality,  are  fluid,  there 
is  nothing  for  it  but  to  resign  one's  self. 

April  9,    1856. — How  true  it  is  that  our  destinies  are 
decided  by  nothings  and  that  a  small  imprudence  helped  by 
some  insignificant  accident,  as  an  acorn  is  fertilized  by  a  drop 
of  rain,  may  raise  the  trees  on  which  perhaps  we  and  others 
shall  be  crucified.     What  h.appens  is  quite  different  from 
that  we  planned ;  we  planned  a  blessing  and  there  springs 
from  it  a  curse.     How  many  times  the  serpent  of  fatality ,^^ 
or  rather  the  law  of  life,  the  force  of  things,  intertwining^ 
itself  with  some  very  simple  facts,  cannot  be  cut  away  by 
any  effort,  and  the  logic  of  situations  and  characters  leads 
inevitably  to  a  dreaded  denouement.     It  is  the  fatal  spell  of 
destiny,  which  obliges  us  to  feed  our  grief  from  our  own 
hand,  to  prolong  the  existence  of  our  vulture,  to  throw 
into  the  furnace  of  our  punishment  and  expiation,   our 
powers,  our  qualities,  our  very  virtues,  one  by  one,  and  so 
forces  us  to  recognize  our  nothingness,  our  dependence  and 
the    implacable  majesty  of  law.     Faith  in  a  providence 
softens  punishment  but  does  not  do  away  with  it.     The 
wheels  of  the  divine  chariot  crush  us  first  of  all  that  justice 
may  be  satisfied  and  an  example  given  to  men,  and  then 
a  hand  is  stretched  out  to  us  to  raise  us  up,  or  at  least  to 
reconcile  us  with  the  love  hidden  under  the  justice.     Par- 
don cannot  precede  repentance  and  repentance  only  begins 
with  humility.     And  so  long  as  any  fault  whatever  appears 
trifling  to  us,   so  long  as  we  see,  not  so  much   the  cul- 
pability of  as  the  excuses  for  imprudence  or  negligence, 
80  long,   in  short,   as  Job   murmurs  and    as  providence 
is  thought   to  be  too  severe,   so  long    as    there    is  any 
inner  protestation  against   fate,  or  doubt  as  to  the  per- 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  67 

feet  justice  of  God,  there  is  not  yet  entire  humility  or  true 
repentance.  It  is  when  we  accept  the  expiation  that  it  can 
be  spared  us;  it  is  when  we  submit  sincerely  that  grace  can 
be  granted  to  us.  Only  when  grief  finds  its  work  done  can 
Ood  dispense  us  from  it.  Trial  then  only  stops  when  it  is 
useless:  that  is  why  it  scarcely  ever  stops.  Faith  in  the 
justice  and  love  of  the  Father  is  the  best  and  indeed  the 
only  support  under  the  sufferings  of  this  life.  The  foun- 
dation of  all  of  our  pains  is  unbelief;  we  doubt  whether 
what  happens  to  us  ought  to  happen  to  us;  we  think  our- 
selves wiser  than  providence,  because  to  avoid  fatalism  wo 
believe  in  accident.  Liberty  in  submission — what  a  problem ! 
And  yet  that  is  what  we  must  always  come  back  to. 

May  7,  1856. — I  have  been  reading  Rosenkrantz's"  His- 
tory of  Poetry"*  all  day:  it  touches  upon  all  the  great 
names  of  Spain,  Portugal,  and  France,  as  far  as  Louis  XV. 
It  is  a  good  thing  to  take  these  rapid  surveys;  the  shift- 
ing point  of  view  gives  a  perpetual  freshness  to  the  sub- 
ject and  to  the  ideas  presented,  a  literary  experience 
which  is  always  pleasant  and  bracing.  For  one  of  my 
temperament,  this  philosophic  and  morphological  mode  of 
embracing  and  expounding  literary  history  has  a  strong 
attraction.  But  it  is  the  antipodes  of  the  French  method 
of  proceeding,  which  takes,  as  it  were,  only  the  peaks  of 
the  subject,  links  them  together  by  theoretical  figures  and 
triangulations,  and  then  assumes  these  lines  to  rej)- 
resent  the  genuine  face  of  the  country.  The  real  process 
of  formation  of  a  general  opinion,  of  a  public  taste,  of  an 
established  genre,  cannot  be  laid  bare  by  an  abstract 
method,  which  suppresses  the  period  of  growtli 
in  favor  of  the  final  fruit,  which  prefers  clear- 
ness of  outline  to  fullness  of  statement,  and  sacrifices  the 
preparation  to  the  result,  the  multitude  to  the  chosen  type. 
This  French  method,  however,  is  eminently  characteristic, 
and  it  is  linked  by  invisible   ties  to  their  respect  for  cus- 

^"Gescbicbte  der  Poesie,"  by  Roseukrantz,  the  pupil  and  biograplier 
of  Hegel. 


68  A  MI  EDS  JO  URN  A  L. 

torn  and  fashion,  to  the  Catholic  and  dualist  instinct  which 
admits  two  truths,  two  contradictory  worlds,  and  accepts 
quite  naturally  what  is  magical,  incomprehensible,  and 
arbitrary  in  God,  the  king,  or  language.  It  is  the  philoso- 
phy of  accident  become  habit,  instinct,  nature  and  belief, 
it  is  the  religion  of  caprice. 

By  one  of  those  eternal  contrasts  which  redress  the  bal- 
ance of  things,  the  romance  peoples,  who  excel  in  the  prac- 
tical matters  of  life,  care  nothing  for  the  philosophy  of  it ; 
while  the  Germans,  who  know  very  little  about  the  prac- 
tice of  life,  are  masters  of  its  theory.  Every  living  being 
seeks  instinctively  to  complete  itself;  this  is  the  secret 
law  according  to  which  that  nation  whose  sense  of  life  is 
fullest  and  keenest,  drifts  most  readily  toward  a  mathe- 
matical rigidity  of  theory.  Matter  and  form  are  the  eter- 
nal oppositions,  and  the  mathematical  intellects  are  often 
attracted  by  the  facts  of  life,  just  as  the  sensuous  minds 
are  often  drawn  toward  the  study  of  abstract  law.  Thus 
strangely  enough,  what  we  think  we  are  is  just  what  we 
are  not:  what  we  desire  to  be  is  what  suits  us  least;  our 
theories  condemn  us,  and  our  practice  gives  the  lie  to  our 
theories.  And  the  contradiction  is  an  advantage,  for  it  is 
the  source  of  conflict,  of  movement,  and  therefore  a  con- 
dition of  progress.  Every  life  is  an  inward  struggle,  every 
struggle  supposes  two  contrary  forces;  nothing  real  is  sim- 
ple, and  whatever  thinks  itself  simple  is  in  reality  the 
farthest  from  simplicity.  Therefore  it  would  seem  that 
every  state  is  a  moment  in  a  series;  every  being  a  com- 
promise between  contraries.  In  concrete  dialectic  we  have 
the  key  which  opens  to  us  the  understanding  of  beings  in 
the  series  of  beings,  of  states  in  the  series  of  moments; 
and  it  is  in  dynamics  that  we  have  the  explanation  of  equi- 
librium. Every  situation  is  an  equilibrium  of  forces;  every 
life  is  a  struggle  between  opposing  forces  working  within 
the  limits  of  a  certain  equilibrium. 

These  two  principles  have  been  often  clear  to  me,  but  I 
have  never  applied  them  widely  or  rigorously  enough. 

July  1,  1856. — A  man  and  still  more  a  woman,  always 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  69 

betrays  something  of  his  or  her  nationality.  The  women 
of  Russia,  for  instance,  like  the  lakes  and  rivers  of  their 
native  country,  seem  to  be  subject  to  sudden  and  prolonged 
fits  of  torpor.  In  their  movement,  undulating  and  caress- 
ing like  that  of  water,  there  is  always  a  threat  of  unfore- 
seen frost.  The  high  latitude,  the  difficulty  of  life,  the 
inflexibility  of  their  autocratic  regime,  the  heavy  and 
mournful  sky,  the  inexorable  climate,  all  these  harsh  fatal- 
ities have  left  their  mark  upon  the  Muscovite  race.  A 
certain  somber  obstinacy,  a  kind  of  primitive  ferocity,  a 
foundation  of  savage  harshness  which,  under  the  influence 
of  circumstances,  might  become  implacable  and  pitiless;  a 
cold  strength,  an  indomitable  power  of  resolution  which 
would  rather  wreck  the  Avhole  world  than  yield,  the  inde- 
structible instinct  of  the  barbarian  tribe,  perceptible  in  the 
half-civilized  nation,  all  these  traits  are  visible  to  an  at- 
tentive eye,  even  in  the  harmless  extravagances  and  caprices 
of  a  young  woman  of  this  powerful  race.  Even  in  their 
badinage  they  betray  something  of  that  fierce  and  rigid 
nationality  which  burns  its  own  towns  and  [as  Napoleon 
said]  keeps  battalions  of  dead  soldiers  on  their  feet. 

What  terrible  rulers  the  Russians  would  be  if  ever  they 
should  spread  the  night  of  their  rule  over  the  countries  of 
the  south!  They  would  bring  us  a  polar  despotism, 
tryanny  such  as  the  world  has  never  known,  silent  as  dark- 
ness, rigid  as  ice,  insensible  as  bronze,  decked  with  an 
outer  amiability  and  glittering  with  the  cold  brilliancy  of 
snow,  a  slavery  without  compensation  or  relief.  Probably, 
however,  they  will  gradually  lose  both  the  virtues  and  the 
defects  of  their  semi-barbarism.  The  centuries  as  they 
•pass  will  ripen  these  sons  of  the  north,  and  they  will  enter 
into  the  concert  of  peoples  in  some  other  capacity  than  as 
a  menace  or  a  dissonance.  They  have  only  to  transform 
their  hardiness  into  strength,  their  cunning  into  grace, 
their  Muscovitism  into  humanity,  to  win  love  instead  of 
inspiring  aversion  or  fear. 

July  3,  1856. — The  German  admires  form,  but  he  has 
no  genius  for  it.     He  is  the  opposite  of  the  Greek ;  he  has 


70  A  MIEl/8  JO  URN  A  L. 

critical  instinct,  aspiration,  and  desire,  but  no  serene  com- 
mand of  beauty.  The  south,  more  artistic,  more  self- 
satisfied,  more  capable  of  execution,  rests  idly  in  the  sense 
of  its  own  power  to  achieve.  On  one  side  you  have  ideas, 
<Mi  the  other  side,  talent.  The  realm  of  Germany  is  beyond 
the  clouds;  that  of  the  southern  peoples  is  on  this  earth. 
The  Germanic  race  thinks  and  feels;  the  southerners  feel 
jind  express;  the  Anglo-Saxons  will  and  do.  To  know,  to 
foel,  to  act,  there  you  have  the  trio  of  Germany,  Italy, 
I"!iigland.  France  formulates,  speaks,  decides,  and  laughs. 
Tiiought,  talent,  will,  speech;  or,  in  other  words  science, 
art,  action,  proselytism.  So  the  parts  of  the  quartet  are 
assigned. 

July  21,  1856. — Mit  sack  und  pack  here  I  am  back 
again  in  my  town  rooms.  I  have  said  good-bye  to  my 
friends  and  my  country  joys,  to  verdure,  flowers,  and  hap- 
piness. Why  did  I  leave  them  after  all?  The  reason  I 
gave  myself  was  that  I  was  anxious  about  my  poor  uncle, 
who  is  ill.  But  at  bottom  are  there  not  other  reasons  ? 
Yes,  several.  There  is  the  fear  of  making  myself  a  burden 
upon  the  two  or  three  families  of  friends  who  show  me 
incessant  kindness,  for  which  I  can  make  no  return. 
There  are  my  books,  which  call  me  back.  There  is  the 
wish  to  keep  faith  with  myself.  But  all  that  would  be 
nothing,  I  think,  without  another  instinct,  the  instinct  of 
the  wandering  Jew,  which  snatches  from  me  the  cup  I 
have  but  just  raised  to  my  lips,  which  forbids  me  any  pro- 
longed enjoyment,  and  cries  "go  forward!  Let  there  be 
no  falling  asleep,  no  stopping,  no  attaching  yourself  to  this 
or  that !  "  This  restless  feeling  is  not  the  need  of  change. 
It  is  rather  the  fear  of  what  I  love,  the  mistrust  of  what 
charms  me,  the  unrest  of  happiness.  What  a  bizarre  ten- 
dency, and  what  a  strange  nature !  not  to  be  able  to  enjoy 
anything  simply,  naively,  without  scruple,  to  feel  a  force 
upon  one  impelling  one  to  leave  the  table,  for  fear  the  meal 
should  come  to  an  end.  Contradiction  and  mystery!  not 
to  use,  for  fear  of  abusing;  to  think  one's  self  obliged  to  go, 
not  because  one  has  had  enough,  but  because  one  has  stayed 


AMTEU8  JOURNAL.  71 

awhile.  I  am  indeed  always  the  same;  the  being  who 
wanders  when  he  need  not,  the  voluntary  exile,  the  eternal 
traveler,  the  man  incapable  of  repose,  who,  driven  on  by 
an  inward  voice,  builds  nowhere,  buys  and  labors  nowhere, 
but  passes,  looks,  camps,  and  goes.  And  is  there  not 
another  reason  for  all  this  restlessness,  in  a  certain  sense  of 
void?  of  incessant  pursuit  of  something  wanting  ?of  long- 
ing for  a  truer  peace  and  a  more  entire  satisfaction  ? 
Neighbors,  friends,  relations,  I  love  them  all;  and  so  long 
as  these  affections  are  active,  they  leave  in  me  no  room  for 
a  sense  of  want.  But  yet  they  do  not  fill  my  heart;  and 
that  is  why  they  have  no  power  to  fix  it.  I  am  always 
waiting  for  the  woman  and  the  work  which  shall  be  capa- 
ble of  taking  entire  possession  of  my  soul,  and  of  becoming 
my  end  and  aim. 

"  Promenant  par  tout  sejour 

Le  deuil  que  tu  celes, 
Psycbe-papillon,  un  jour 
Puisses-tu  trouver  I'amour 

Et  perdre  tes  ailes  !  " 

I  have  not  given  away  my  heart :  hence  this  restlessness 
of  spirit.  I  will  not  let  it  be  taken  captive  by  that  which 
cannot  fill  and  satisfy  it;  hence  this  instinct  of  pitiless 
detachment  from  all  that  charms  me  without  permanently 
binding  me ;  so  that  it  seems  as  if  my  love  of  movement, 
which  looks  so  like  inconstancy,  was  at  bottom  only  a  per- 
petual search,  a  hope,  a  desire,  and  a  care,  the  malady  of 
the  ideal. 

.  .  .  Life  indeed  must  always  be  a  compromise  be- 
.tween  common  sense  and  the  ideal,  the  one  abating  nothing 
of  its  demands,  the  other  acommodating  itself  to  what  is 
practicable  and  real.  But  marriage  by  common  sense! 
arrived  at  by  a  bargain !  Can  it  be  anything  but  a  profana- 
tion? On  the  other,  hand,  is  that  not  a  vicious  ideal  which 
hinders  life  from  completing  itself,  and  destroys  the 
family  in  germ  ?  Is  there  not  too  much  of  pride  in 
my  ideal,  pride  which  will  not  accept  the  common  des- 
tiny ?     .     .     . 


72  AMIEL 8  JOURNAL. 

Noon. — I  have  been  dreaming — my  head  in  my  hand. 
About  what?  About  happiness.  I  have  as  it  were,  been 
asleep  on  the  fatherly  breast  of  God.     His  will  be  done! 

August  3,  1856. — A  delightful  Sunday  afternoon  at 
Pressy.  Returned  late,  under  a  great  sky  magnificently 
starred,  with  summer  lightning  playing  from  a  point  be- 
hind the  Jura.  Drunk  with  poetry,  and  overwhelmed  by 
sensation  after  sensation,  I  came  back  slowly,  blessing  the 
God  of  life,  and  plunged  in  the  joy  of  the  infinite.  One 
thing  only  I  lacked,  a  soul  with  whom  to  share  it  all — for 
emotion  and  enthusiasm  overflowed  like  water  from  a  full 
cup.  The  Milky  Way,  the  great  black  poplars,  the  ripple 
of  the  waves,  the  shooting  stars,  distant  songs,  the  lamp- 
lit  town,  all  spoke  to  me  in  the  language  of  poetry.  I  felt 
myself  almost  a  poet.  The  wrinkles  of  science  disappeared 
under  the  magic  breath  of  admiration ;  the  old  elasticity 
of  soul,  trustful,  free,  and  living  was  mine  once  more.  I 
was  once  more  young,  capable  of  self-abandonment  and  of 
love.  All  my  barrenness  had  disappeared;  the  heavenly 
dew  had  fertilized  the  dead  and  gnarled  stick;  it  began  to 
be  green  and  flower  again.  My  God,  how  wretched 
should  we  be  without  beauty!  But  with  it,  everything  is 
born  afresh  in  us;  the  senses,  the  heart,  imagination, 
reason,  will,  come  together  like  the  dead  bones  of  the 
prophet,  and  become  one  single  and  self-same  energy. 
What  is  happiness  if  it  is  not  this  plentitude  of  existence, 
this  close  union  with  the  universal  and  divine  life?  I  have 
been  happy  a  whole  half  day,  and  I  have  been  brooding 
over  my  joy,  steeping  myself  in  it  to  the  very  depths  of 
consciousness. 

October  22,  1856. — "We  mnst  learn  to  look  upon  life  as 
an  apprenticeship  to  a  progressive  renunciation,  a  perpet- 
ual diminution  in  our  pretensions,  our  hopes,  our  powers, 
and  our  liberty.  The  circle  grows  narrower  and  narrower; 
we  began  with  being  eager  to  learn  everything,  to  see  every- 
thing, to  tame  and  conquer  everything,  and  in  all  direc- 
tions we  reach  our  limit--wo«  plus  tcUra.  Fortune,  glory, 
love,  power,  health,  happiness,  long  life,  all  these  blessings 


A  Ml  EL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  73 

which  have  been  possessed  by  other  men  seem  at  first 
promised  and  accessible  to  us,  and  then  Ave  have  to  put  the 
dream  away  from  us,  to  withdraw  one  personal  claim  after 
another  to  make  ourselves  small  and  humble,  to  submit 
to  feel  ourselves  limited,  feeble,  dependent,  ignorant  and 
poor,  and  to  throw  ourselves  upon  God  for  all,  recognizing 
our  own  worthl  essness,  and  that  Ave  have  no  right  to  any- 
thing. It  is  in  this  nothingness  that  we  recover  something 
of  life — the  divine  spark  is  there  at  the  bottom  of  it. 
Resignation  comes  to  us,  and,  in  believing  love,  we  recon- 
quer the  true  greatness. 

October  27,  1856. — In  all  the  chief  matters  of  life  we 
are  alone,  and  our  true  history  is  scarcely  ever  deciphered 
by  others.  The  chief  part  of  the  drama  is  a  monologue, 
rather  an  intimate  debate  between  God,  our  conscience,  and 
ourselves.  Tears,  griefs,  depressions,  disappointments, 
irritations,  good  and  evil  thoughts,  decisions,  uncertainties, 
deliberations,  all  these  belong  to  our  secret,  and  are  almost 
all  incommunicable  and  intransmissible,  even  Avhen  we  try  to 
speak  of  them,  and  even  when  we  write  them  down. 
Wh-at  is  most  precious  in  us  never  shows  itself,  never  finds 
an  issue  even  in  the  closest  intimacy.  Only  a  part  of  it 
reaches  our  consciousness,  it  scarcely  enters  into  action  ex- 
cept in  prayer,  and  is  perhaps  only  perceived  by  God,  for 
our  past  rapidly  becomes  strange  to  us.  Our  monad  may 
be  influenced  by  other  monads,  but  none  the  less  does  it 
remain  impenetrable  to  them  in  its  essence;  and  we  our- 
selves, when  all  is  said,  remain  outside  our  own  mystery. 
The  center  of  our  consciousness  is  unconscious,  as  the 
kernel  of  the  sun  is  dark.  All  that  we  are,  desire,  do,  and 
know,  is  more  or  less  superficial,  and  below  the  rays  and 
lightnings  of  our  periphery  there  remains  th«  darkness  of 
unfathomable  substance. 

I  was  then  well-advised  when,  in  my  theory  of  the  inner 
man,  I  placed  at  the  foundation  of  the  self,  after  the  seven 
spheres  which  the  self  contains  had  been  successively  dis- 
engaged, a  lowest  depth  of  darkness,  the  abyss  of  the  un- 
,  revealed,    the   virtual   pledge  of  an  infinite    future,  the 


74  AMtfsVJS  Jotrtil'TAt, 

obscure  self,  the  pure  subjedtivity  which  is  incapable  oi 
realizing  itself  in  tnind,  ctitisinence,  or  reason,  in  the  soul^ 
the  heart,  the  imagination,  or  the  life  of  the  senses,  and 
which  makes  for  itself  attributes  and  conditions  out  of  all 
these  forms  of  its  own  life. 

But  the  obscure  only  exists  that  it  may  cease  t5  exist. 
In  it  lies  the  opportunity  of  all  victory  and  all  progress. 
Whether  it  call  itself  fatality,  death,  night,  or  matter,  it  is; 
the  pedestal  of  life,  of  light,  of  liberty,  and  the  spirit. 
For  it  represents  resistance — that  is  to  say,  the  fulcrum  of 
all  activity,  the  occasion  for  its  development  and  its 
triumph. 

December  17,  1856. — This  evening  was  the  second 
quartet  concert.  It  stirred  me  much  more  than  the  first; 
the  music  chosen  was  loftier  and  stronger.  It  was  the 
quartet  in  D  minor  of  Mozart,  and  the  quartet  in  C 
major  of  Beethoven,  separated  by  a  Spohr  concerto.  This 
last,  vivid,  and  brilliant  as  a  whole,  has  fire  in  the  allegro,, 
feeling  in  the  adagio,  and  elegance  in  the  finale^  but  it  i8= 
the  product  of  one  fine  gift  in  a  mediocre  personality.. 
With  the  two  others  you  are  at  once  in  contact  with 
genius;  you  are  admitted  to  the  secrets  of  two  great  souls- 
Mozart  stands  for  inward  liberty,  Beethoven  for  the  power 
of  enthusiasm.  The  one  sets  us  free,  the  other  ravishes-- 
us  out  of  ourselves.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  felt  more  dis- 
tinctly than  to-day,  or  with  more  intensity,  the  difference' 
between  these  two  masters.  Their  two  personali'tieB  be- 
came transparent  to  me,  and  I  seemed  to  read  them  to 
their  depths. 

The  work  of  Mozart,  penetrated  as  it  is  with  mrnd  and' 
thought,  represents  a  solved  problem,  a  balance'  struck  be- 
tween aspiration  and  executive  capacity,  tli«  sovereignty 
of  a  grace  which  is  always  mistress  of  itself;  marvelous; 
harmony  and  perfect  unity.  His  quartet  describes  a  day 
in  one  of  those  Attic  souls  who  pre-iTgure-^jn'  earth  tha 
weremty  of  Elysium.  The  first  scene  is  a  ]*leasant  conver- 
sation, like  that  of  Socrates  ou  the  banks  ok  the  llissus;  its' 
cLiief  mark  is  an  exquisite  url>:iniLv.     The- second  scene  is. 


AMTKU8  JOURNAL.  7{y 

deeply  pathetic.  A  cloud  has  risen  in  the  blue  of  this 
Greek  heaven.  A  storm,  such  as  life  inevitably  brings 
with  it,  even  in  the  case  of  great  souls  who  love  and  es- 
teem each  other,  has  come  to  trouble  the  original  harmony. 
What  is  the  cause  of  it — a  misunderstanding,  apiece  of  neg- 
lect ?  Impossible  to  say,  but  it  breaks  out  notwithstand- 
ing. The  andante  is  a  scene  of  reproach  and  complaint^  but 
as  between  'immmortals.  What  loftiness  in  complaint^ 
what  dignity,  what  feeling,  what  noble  sweetness  in  re- 
proach !  The  voice  trembles  and  grows  graver,  but  remains 
affectionate  and  dignified.  Then,  the  storm  has  passed^ 
the  sun  has  come  back,  the  explanation  has  taken  place, 
peace  is  re-established.  The  third  scene  paints  the  bright- 
ness of  reconciliation.  Love,  in  its  restored  confidence, 
and  as  though  in  sly  self-testing,  permits  itself  even  gentle 
mocking  and  friendly  badinage.  And  the  finale  brings  us 
back  to  that  tempered  gaiety  and  happy  serenity,  that  su- 
preme freedom,  flower  of  the  inner  life,  which  is  the 
leading  motive  of  the  whole  composition. 

In  Beethoven's  on  the  other  hand,  a  spirit  of  tragic 
irony  paints  for  you  the  mad  tumult  of  existence  as  it 
dances  forever  above  the  threatening  abyss  of  the  infinite. 
No  more  unity,  no  more  satisfaction,  no  more  serenity !  We 
are  spectators  of  the  eternal  duel  between  the  great  forces^ 
that  of  the  abyss  which  absorbs  all  finite  things,  and  that 
of  life  which  defends  and  asserts  itself,  expands,  and  en- 
joys. The  first  bars  break  the  seals  and  open  the  caverns- 
of  the  great  deep.  The  struggle  begins.  It  is  long.  Life 
is  born,  and  disports  itself  gay  and  careless  as  the  butterfly 
which  flutters  above  a  precipice.  Then  it  expands  the 
realm  of  its  conquests,  and  chants  its  successes^  It  founds 
a  kingdom,  it  constructs  a  system  of  nature.  But  the  ty- 
phon  rises  from  the  yawning  gulf,  and  the  Titans  beat 
upon  the  gates  of  the  new  empire.  A  battle  of  giants  be- 
gins. You  hear  the  tumultuous  efforts  of  the  powers  of 
chaos.  Life  triumphs  at  last,  but  the  victory  is  not  final,, 
and  through  all  the  intoxication  of  it  there  is  a  certaii* 
note  of  terror  and  bewilderment.     The  soul  of  Beethoven 


76  AMIEU a  JOURNAL. 

■was  a  tormented  soul.  The  passion  and  the  awe  of  the 
infinite  seemed  to  toss  it  to  and  fro  from  heaven  to  hell. 
Hence  its  vastness.  AVhich  is  the  greater,  Mozart  or  Bee- 
thoven? Idle  question!  The  one  is  more  perfect,  the 
other  more  colossal.  The  first  gives  you  the  peace  of  per- 
fect art,  beauty,  at  first  sight.  The  second  gives  you  sub- 
limity, terror,  pity,  a  beauty  of  second  impression.  The 
one  gives  that  for  which  the  other  rouses  a  desire.  Mozart 
has  the  classic  purity  of  light  and  the  blue  ocean ;  Beetho- 
ven the  romantic  grandeur  which  belongs  to  the  storms  of 
air  and  sea,  and  while  the  soul  of  Mozart  seems  to  dwell  on 
the  ethereal  peaks  of  Olympus,  that  of  Beethoven  climbs 
shuddering  the  storm-beaten  sides  of  a  Sinai.  Blessed  be 
they  botli!  Each  represents  a  moment  of  the  ideal  life, 
each  does  us  good.     Our  love  is  due  to  both. 


To  judge  is  to  see  clearly,  to  care  for  what  is  Just  and 
therefore  to  be  impartial,  more  exactly,  to  be  disinterested, 
more  exactly  still,  to  be  impersonal. 


To  do  easily  what  is  difficult  for  others  is  the  mark  of 
talent.  To  do  what  is  impossible  for  talent  is  the  mark  of 
genius. 


Our  duty  is  to  be  useful,  not  according  to  our  desiies 
but  according  to  our  powers. 


If  nationality  is  consent,  the  state  is  compulsion. 


Self-interest  is  but   the  survival  of  the  animal  in  us. 
Humanity  only  begins  for  man  with  self -surrender. 


The  man  who  insists  upon  seeing  with  perfect  clearness 
before  he  decides,  never  decides.  Accept  life,  and  you 
must  accept  regret. 


Without  passion  man  is  a  mere  latent  force  and  possibil- 
ity, like  the  flint  which  awaits  the  shock  of  the  iron  before 
it  can  give  forth  its  spark. 


AMIKUS  JOURNAL.  77 

February  3,  1857. — The  phantasmagoria  of  the  soul 
cradles  and  soothes  me  as  though  I  were  an  Indian 
yoghi,  and  everything,  even  my  own  life,  becomes  to  me 
smoke,  shadow,  vapor,  and  illusion.  I  hold  so  lightly  to 
all  phenomena  that  they  end  by  passing  over  me  like  gleams 
over  a  landscape,  and  are  gone  without  leaving  any  im- 
pression. Thought  is  a  kind  of  opium;  it  can  intoxicate 
us,  while  still  broad  awake;  it  can  make  transparent  the 
mountains  and  everything  that  exists.  It  is  by  love  only 
that  one  keeps  hold  upon  reality,  that  one  recovers  one's 
proper  self,  that  one  becomes  again  will,  force,  and  indi- 
viduality. Love  could  do  everything  with  me;  by  myself 
and  for  myself  I  prefer  to  be  nothing.        .     .     . 

I  have  the  imagination  of  regret  and  not  that  of  hope. 
My  clear-sightedness  is  retrospective,  and  the  result  with 
me  of  disinterestedness  and  prudence  is  that  I  attach 
myself  to  what  I  have  no  chance  of  obtaining.  . 

May  27,  1857.  (Vandceuvres*.) — We  are  going  down 
to  Geneva  to  hear  the  "  Tannhiiuser"  of  Eichard  Wagner 
performed  at  the  theater  by  the  German  troup  now  passing 
through.  Wagner's  is  a  powerful  mind  endowed  with 
strong  poetical  sensitiveness.  His  work  is  even  more  poet- 
ical than  musical.  The  suppression  of  the  lyrical  element, 
and  therefore  of  melody,  is  with  him  a  systematic  parti 
pris.  No  more  duos  or  trios;  monologue  and  the  aria  are 
alike  done  away  with.  There  remains  only  declamation, 
the  recitative,  and  the  choruses.  In  order  to  avoid  the  con- 
ventional in  singing,  Wagner  falls  into  another  conven- 
tion— that  of  not  singing  at  all.  He  subordinates  the 
voice  to  articulate  speech,  and  for  fear  lest  the  muse  should 
take  flight  he  clips  her  wings.  So  that  his  works  are 
rather  symphonic  dramas  than  operas.  The  voice  is 
brought  down  to  the  rank  of  an  instrument,  put  on  a  level 
with  the  violins,  the  hautboys,  and  the  drums,  and 
treated  instrumentally.  Man  is  deposed  from  his  superior 
])03ition,  and  the  center  of  gravity  of  the  work  passes  into 

*  Also  a  village  in  the  neighborhood  of  Geneva. 


78  A  MIKL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

the  baton  of  the  conductor.  It  is  music  depersonalized, 
neo-Hegelian  music — music  multiple  instead  of  in- 
dividual. If  this  is  so,  it  is  indeed  the  music  of  the 
future,  the  music  of  the  socialist  democracy  replacing  the 
art  which  is  aristocratic,  heroic,  or  subjective. 

The  overture  pleased  me  even  less  than  at  the  first  hear- 
ing: it  is  like  nature  before  man  appeared.  Everything 
in  it  is  enormous,  savage,  elementary,  like  the  murmur  of 
forests  and  the  roar  of  animals.  It  is  forbidding  and 
obscure,  because  man,  that  is  to  say,  mind,  the  key  of  the 
enigma,  personality,  the  spectator,  is  wanting  to  it. 

The  idea  of  the  piece  is  grand.  It  is  nothing  less  than 
the  struggle  of  passion  and  pure  love,  of  flesh  and  spirit, 
of  the  animal  and  the  angel  in  man.  The  music  is  always 
expressive,  the  choruses  very  beautiful,  the  orchestration 
skillful,  but  the  whole  is  fatiguing  and  excessive,  too  full, 
too  laborious.  When  all  is  said,  it  lacks  gayety,  ease,  natural- 
ness and  vivacity — it  has  no  smile,  no  wings.  Poetically  one 
is  fascinated,  but  one's  musical  enjoyment  is  hesitating, 
often  doubtful,  and  one  recalls  nothing  but  the  general 
impression — Wagner's  music  represents  the  abdication  of 
the  self,  and  the  emancipation  of  all  the  forces  once  under  its 
rule.  It  is  a  falling  back  into  Spinozism — the  triumph 
of  fatality.  This  music  has  its  root  and  its  fulcrum  in 
two  tendencies  of  the  epoch,  materialism  and  socialism — 
each  of  them  ignoring  the  true  value  of  the  human 
personality,  and  drowning  it  in  the  totality  of  nature  or  of 
society. 

June  17,  1857.  (Vandoeuvres). — I  have  just  followed 
Maine  de  Biran  from  his  twenty-eighth  to  his  forty-eighth 
year  by  means  of  his  journal,  and  a  crowd  of  thoughts  have 
besieged  me.  Let  me  disengage  those  which  concern  my- 
self. In  this  eternal  self -chronicler  and  observer  I  seem 
to  see  myself  reflected  with  all  my  faults,  indecision,  dis- 
couragement, over-dependence  on  sympathy,  diflRculty  of 
finishing,  with  my  habit  of  watching  myself  feel  and  live, 
with  my  growing  incapacity  for  practical  action,  with  my 
aptitude  for  psychological  study.     But  I  have  also  discov 


AMIEVS  JOURNAL.  70 

ered  some  differences  which  cheer  and  console  me.  This 
nature  is,  as  it  were,  only  one  of  the  men  which  exist  in 
me.  It  is  one  of  my  departments.  It  is  not  the  whole  of 
my  territory,  the  whole  of  my  inner  kingdom.  Intellect- 
ually, I  am  more  objectire  and  more  constructive; 
my  horizon  is  vaster;  I  have  Seen  much  more  of  men, 
things,  countries,  peoples  and  books;  I  have  a  greater  mass 
of  experiences — in  a  word,  I  feel  that  I  have  more  culture, 
greater  wealth,  range,  and  freedom  of  mind,  in  spite  of 
my  wants,  my  limits,  aiid  my  weaknesses.  Why  does 
Maine  de  Biran  make  will  the  whole  of  man?  Perhaps 
because  he  had  too  little  will.  A  man  esteems  most  highly 
what  he  himself  lacks,  and  exaggerates  what  he  longs  to 
possess.  Another  incapable  of  thought,  and  meditation, 
would  have  made  self-consciousness  the  supreme  thing. 
Only  the  totality  of  things  has  an  objective  value.  As 
soon  as  one  isolates  a  part  from  the  whole,  as  soon  as  one 
chooses,  the  choice  is  involuntarily  and  instinctively  dic- 
tated by  subjective  inclinations  which  obey  one  or  other  of 
the  two  opposing  laws,  the  attraction  of  similars  or  the 
affinity  of  contraries. 

Five  o'clock. — The  morning  has  passed  like  a  dream. 
I  went  on  with  the  journal  of  Maine  de  Biran  down  to  th» 
end  of  1817.  After  dinner  I  passed  my  time  with  the  bird* 
in  the  open  air,  wandering  in  the  shady  walks  which 
wind  along  under  Pressy.  The  sun  was  brilliant  and  the- 
air  clear.  The  midday  orchestra  of  nature  was  at  its  best. 
Against  the  humming  background  made  by  a  thousand 
invisible  insects  there  rose  the  delicate  caprices  and  impro- 
visations of  the  nightingale  singing  from  the  ash-trees,  or  of 
the  hedge-sparrows  and  the  chaffinches  in  their  nests.  The 
hedges  are  hung  with  wild  roses,  the  scent  of  the  acacia 
still  perfumes  the  paths;  the  light  down  of  the  poplar 
'seeds  floated  in  the  air  like  a  kind  of  warm,  fair-weathei 
snow.  I  felt  myself  as  gay  as  a  butterfly.  On  coming  in 
I  read  the  three  first  books  of  that  poem  "  Corinne," 
which  I  have  not  seen  since  I  was  a  youth.  Now  as  I  read 
it  again,  I  look  at  it  across  interposing   memories;    the 


80  A  MIEL'8  JO  VRNAL. 

romantic  interest  of  it  seems  to  me  to  have  vanished,  but 
not  the  poetical,  pathetic,  or  moral  interest. 

June  18th. — I  have  just  been  spending  three  hours  in 
the  orchard  under  the  shade  of  the  hedge,  combining  the 
spectacle  of  a  beautiful  morning  with  reading  and  taking  a 
turn  between  each  chapter.  Now  the  sky  is  again  covered 
with  its  white  veil  of  cloud,  and  I  have  come  up  with 
Biran,  whose  "Pensee"  I  have  just  finished,  and  Corinne, 
whom  I  have  followed  with  Oswald  in  their  excursions 
among  the  monuments  of  the  eternal  city.  Nothing  is  so 
melancholy  and  wearisome  as  this  journal  of  Maine  de 
Biran.  This  unchanging  monotony  of  perpetual  reflection 
has  an  enervating  and  depressing  eifect  upon  one.  Here, 
then,  is  the  life  of  a  distinguished  man  seen  in  its  most 
intimate  aspects!  It  is  one  long  repetition,  in  which  the 
only  change  is  an  almost  imperceptible  displacement  of 
center  in  the  writer's  manner  of  viewing  himself.  This 
thinker  takes  thirty  years  to  move  from  the  Epicurean 
quietude  to  the  quietism  of  Fenelon,  and  this  only  specula- 
tively, for  his  practical  life  remains  the  same,  and  all  his 
anthropological  discovery  consists  in  returning  to  the 
theory  of  the  three  lives,  lower,  human,  and  higher,  which 
is  in  Pascal  and  in  Aristotle.  And  this  is  what  they  call  a 
philosopher  in  France!  Beside  the  great  philosophers, 
how  poor  and  narrow  seems  such  an  intellectual  life!  It 
is  the  journey  of  an  ant,  bounded  by  the  limits  of  a 
field;  of  a  mole,  who  spends  his  days  in* the  construction  o^ 
a  mole-hill.  How  narrow  and  stifling  the  swallow  who  flies 
across  the  whole  Old  World,  and  whose  sphere  of  life  em- 
braces Africa  and  Europe,  would  find  the  circle  with  which 
the  mole  and  the  ant  are  content !  This  volume  of  Biran 
produces  in  me  a  sort  of  asphyxia;  as  I  assimilate  it,  it 
seems  to  paralyze  me;  I  am  chained  to  it  by  some  spell  of 
secret  sympathy.  I  pity,  and  I  am  afraid  of  my  pity,  for 
I  feel  how  near  I  am  to  the  same  evils  and  the  same 
faults.     .     .     . 

Ernest  Naville's  introductory  essay  is  full  of  interest, 
written  in  a  serious  and  noble  style;  but  it  is  almost  as  sad 


AMIEr 8  JOURNAL.  81 

as  it  is  ripe  and  mature.  What  displeases  me  in  it  a  little 
is  its  exaggeration  of  the  merits  of  Biran.  For  the  rest, 
the  small  critical  impatience  which  the  volume  has  stirred 
in  me  will  be  gone  by  to-morrow.  Maine  de  Biran  is  an 
important  link  in  the  French  literary  tradition.  It  is  from 
him  that  our  Swiss  critics  descend,  Naville  father  and  son, 
Secretan.  He  is  the  source  of  our  best  contemporary 
psychology,  for  Stapfer,  Koyer-Collard,  and  Cousin  called 
him  their  master,  and  Ampere,  his  junior  by  nine  years, 
was  his  friend, 

July  25,  1857.  (Vandoeuvres). — At  ten  o'clock  this  even- 
ing, under  a  starlit  sky,  a  group  of  rustics  under  the  win- 
dows of  the  salon  employed  themselves  in  shouting  dis- 
agreeable songs.  Why  is  it  that  this  tuneless  shrieking  of 
false  notes  and  scoffing  words  delights  these  people?  Why 
is  it  that  this  ostentatious  parade  of  ugliness,  this  jarring 
vulgarity  and  grimacing  is  their  way  of  finding  expression 
and  expansion  in  the  great  solitary  and  tranquil  night? 

Why?  Because  of  a  sad  and  secret  instinct.  Because 
of  the  need  they  have  of  realizing  themselves  as  individuals, 
of  asserting  themselves  exclusively,  egotistically,  idola- 
trously — opposing  the  self  in  them  to  everything  else,  plac' 
ing  it  in  harsh  contrast  with  the  nature  which  enwraps  us, 
with  ihe  poetry  which  raises  us  above  ourselves,  with  the 
harmony  which  binds  us  to  others,  with  the  adoration 
which  carries  us  toward  God.  No,  no,  no !  Myself  only, 
and  that  is  enough !  Myself  by  negation,  by  ugliness,  % 
grimace  and  irony  !  Myself,  in  my  caprice,  in  my  independ- 
ence, in  my  irresponsible  sovereignty ;  myself,  set  free  by 
laughter,  free  as  the  demons  are,  and  exulting  in  my 
freedom ;  I,  master  of  myself,  invincible  and  self-sufficient, 
living  for  this  one  time  yet  by  and  for  myself !  This  is 
M'hat  seems  to  me  at  the  bottom  of  this  merry-making. 
One  hears  in  it  an  echo  of  Satan,  the  temptation  to  make 
self  the  center  of  all  things,  to  be  like  an  Elohim,  the 
worst  and  last  revolt  of  man.  It  means  also,  perhaps, 
some  rapid  perception  of  what  is  absolute  in  personality, 
some  rough  exaltation  of  the  subiect,  the  individual,  who 


^2  AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL. 

thus  claims,  by  abusing  them,  the  rights  of  subjective  ex- 
istence. If  so,  it  is  the  caricature  of  our  most  precious 
privilege,  the  parody  of  our  apotheosis,  a  vulgarizing  of 
our  highest  greatness.  Shout  away,  then,  drunkards! 
Your  ignoble  concert,  with  all  its  repulsive  vulgarity,  still 
reveals  to  us,  without  knowing  it,  something  of  the  maj- 
esty of  life  and  the  sovereign  power  of  the  soul. 

September  15,  1857. — I  have  just  finished  Sismondi's 
journal  and  correspondence.  Sismondi  is  essentially  the 
honest  man,  conscientious,  upright,  respectable,  the  friend 
of  the  public  good  and  the  devoted  upholder  of  a  great 
cause,  the  amelioration  of  the-common  lot  of  men.  Char- 
acter and  heart  are  the  dominant  elements  in  his  individ- 
uality, and  cordiality  is  the  salient  feature  of  his  nature. 
Sismondi's  is  a  most  encouraging  example.  With  average 
faculties,  very  little  imagination,  not  much  taste,  not 
much  talent,  without  subtlety  of  feeling,  without  great 
elevation  or  width  or  profundity  of  mind,  he  yet  succeeded 
in  achieving  a  career  which  was  almost  illustrious,  and  he 
hiis  left  behind  him  some  sixty  volumes,  well-known  and 
well  spoken  of.  How  was  this?  His  love  for  men  on  the 
one  side,  and  his  passion  for  work  ©n  the  other,  are  the 
two  factors  in  his  fame.  In  political  economy,  in  literary 
or  political  history,  in  personal  action,  Sismondi  showed 
<xo  genius — scarcely  talent;  but  in  all  he  did  there  was 
solidity,  loyalty,  good  sense  and  integrity.  The  poetical, 
artistic  and  philosophic  sense  is  deficient  in  him,  but  he 
attracts  and  interests  us  by  his  moral  sense.  We  see  in 
him  the  sincere  writer,  a  man  of  excellent  heart,  a  good 
citizen  and  wcirm  friend,  worthy  and  honest  in  the  widest 
sense  of  tb-B  icrms,  not  brilliant,  but  inspiring  trust  and 
confidence  ly  his  character,  his  principles  and  his  virtues. 
More  tha'i  (his,  he  is  the  best  type  of  good  Genevese  lib- 
eralism, republican  but  not  democratic,  Protestant  but  not 
Calvini''.-,  human  but  not  socialist,  progressive  but  without 
any  sympathy  with  violence.  He  was  a  conservative 
without  either  egotism  or  hypocrisy,  a  patriot  without 
larrowness.     In  his  theories  he  was  governed  by  experi- 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL,  83 

ence  and  observation,  and  in  his  practice  by  general  ideas. 
A  laborious  philanthropist,  the  past  and  the  present  were 
to  him  but  fields  of  study,  from  which  useful  lessons  might 
be  gleaned.  Positive  and  reasonable  in  temper,  his  mind 
was  set  upon  a  high  average  well-being  for  human  society, 
and  his  efforts  were  directed  toward  founding  such  s 
social  science  as  might  most  readily  promote  it. 

September  24,  1857. — In  the  course  of  much  thought 
yesterday  about "  Atala"  and  "  Eene, "Chateaubriand  became 
clear  to  me.  I  saw  in  him  a  great  artist  but  not  a  great 
man,  immense  talent  but  a  still  vaster  pride — a  nature  at 
once  devoured  with  ambition  and  unable  to  find  anything 
to  love  or  admire  in  the  world  except  itself — indefatigable  in 
labor  and  capable  of  everything  except  of  true  devotion, 
self-sacrifice  and  faith.  Jealous  of  all  success,  he  was 
always  on  the  opposition  side,  that  he  might  be  the  better 
able  to  disavow  all  services  received,  and  to  hold  aloof 
from  any  other  glory  but  his  own.  Legitimist  under  the 
empire,  a  parliamentarian  ander  the  legitimist  regime, 
republican  under  the  constitutional  monarchy,  defending 
Christianity  when  France  was  philosophical,  and  taking  a 
distaste  for  religion  as  soon  as  it  became  once  more  a 
serious  power,  the  secret  of  these  endless  contradictions  in 
him  was  simply  the  desire  to  reign  alone  like  the  sun — a 
devouring  thirst  for  applause,  an  incurable  and  insatiable 
vanity,  which,  with  the  true,  fierce  instinct  of  tyranny, 
would  endure  no  brother  near  the  throne.  A  man  of  mag- 
nificent imagination  but  of  poor  character,  of  indisputable 
power,  but  cursed  with  a  cold  egotism  and  an  incurable 
barrenness  of  feeling,  which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to 
tolerate  about  him  anybody  but  slaves  or  adorers.  A  tor- 
ment d  soul  and  miserable  life,  when  all  is  said,  under  its 
aureole  of  glory  and  its  crown  of  laurels! 

Essentially  jealous  and  choleric,  Chateaubriand  from  the 
beginning  was  inspired  by  mistrust,  by  the  passion  for 
contradicting,  for  crushing  and  conquering.  This  motive 
may  always  be  traced  in  him.  Rousseau  seems  to  me  his 
point  of  departure,   the  man  who  suggested    to  him  by 


84  AMIKUS  JOURNAL. 

contrast  and  opposition  all  his  replies  and  attacks.  Rous- 
seau is  revolutionary:  Clidteaubriand  therefore  writes  his 
"  Essay  on  Revolutions."  Rousseau  is  republican  and  Protes- 
tant; Chdteaubriand  will  be  royalist  and  Catholic.  Rous- 
seau is  bourgeois;  Chateaubriand  will  glorify  nothing  but 
noble  birth,  honor,  chivalry  and  deeds  of  arms.  Rousseau 
conquered  nature  for  French  letters,  above  all  the  nature 
of  the  mountains  and  of  the  Swiss  and  Savoy,  and  lakes. 
He  pleaded  for  her  against  civilization.  Chdteaubriand 
will  take  possession  of  a  new  and  colossal  nature,  of  the 
ocean,  of  America;  but  he  will  make  his  savages  speak  the 
language  of  Louis  XIV.,  he  will  bow  Atala  before  a 
Catholic  missionary,  and  sanctify  passions  born  on  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi  by  the  solemnities  of  Catholic 
ceremonial.  Rousseau  was  the  apologist  of  reverie;  Chd- 
teaubriand will  build  the  monument  of  it  in  order  to  break 
it  in  Rene.  Rousseau  preaches  Deism  with  all  his  elo- 
quence in  the  "Vicaire  Savoyard;"  Chdteaubriand  sur- 
rounds the  Roman  creed  with  all  the  garlands  of  his  poetry  in 
the"  Genie  du  Christianisme."  Rousseau  appeals  to  natural 
law  and  pleads  for  the  future  of  nations;  Chateaubriand 
will  only  sing  the  glories  of  the  past,  the  ashes  of  history 
and  the  noble  ruins  of  empires.  Always  a  rdle  to  be  filled, 
cleverness  to  be  displayed,  a  parti-pris  to  be  upheld  and 
fame  to  be  won — his  theme,  one  of  imagination,  his  faith 
one  to  order,  but  sincerity,  loyalty,  candor,  seldom  or 
never!  Always  a  real  indifference  simulating  a  passion  for 
truth;  always  an  imperious  thirst  for  glory  instead  of 
devotion  to  the  good;  always  the  ambitious  artist,  never 
the  citizen,  the  believer,  the  man.  Chdteaubriand  posed 
all  his  life  as  the  wearied  Colossus,  smiling  pitifully  upon 
a,  pygmy  world,  and  contemptuously  affecting  to  desire 
nothing  from  it,  though  at  the  same  time  wishing  it  to  be 
believed  that  he  could  if  he  pleased  possess  himself  of 
everything  by  mere  force  of  genius.  He  is  the  type  of  an 
antoward  race,  and  the  father  of  a  disagreeable  lineage. 

But  to  return  to  the  two  episodes.     "  Rene"  seems  to  me 
very  superior  to  "  Atala.''    Both  the  stories  show  a  talent  of 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  85 

the  first  rank,  but  of  the  two  the  beauty  of  "  Atala"  is  of 
the  more  transitory  kind.  The  attempt  to  render  in  the 
style  of  Versailles  the  loves  of  a  Natchez  and  a  Seminole, 
and  to  describe  the  manners  of  the  adorers  of  the  Manitous 
in  the  tone  of  Catholic  sentiment,  was  an  attempt  too 
violent  to  succeed.  But  the  work  is  a  tour  de  force  of 
style,  and  it  was  only  by  the  polished  classicism  of  the 
form,  that  the  romantic  matter  of  the  sentiments  and  the 
descriptions  could  have  been  imported  into  the  colorless 
literature  of  the  empire.  "  Atala"  is  already  old-fashioned 
and  theatrical  in  all  the  parts  which  are  not  descriptive  or 
European — that  is  to  say,  throughout  all  the  sentimental 
savagery. 

"  Kene"  is  infinitely  more  durable.  Its  theme,  which  is  the 
malady  of  a  whole  generation — distaste  for  life  brought 
about  by  idle  reverie  and  the  ravages  of  a  vague  and 
unmeasured  ambition — is  true  to  reality.  Without  know- 
ing or  wishing  it,  Chateaubriand  has  been  sincere,  for  Ken6 
is  himself.  This  little  sketch  is  in  every  respect  a  master- 
piece. It  is  not,  like  "  Atala,"  spoilt  artistically  by  intentions 
alien  to  the  subject,  by  being  made  the  means  of  expres- 
sion of  a  particular  tendency.  Instead  of  taking  a  passion 
for  Eene,  indeed,  future  generations  will  scorn  and  wonder 
at  him ;  instead  of  a  hero  they  will  see  in  him  a  patho- 
logical case;  but  the  work  itself,  like  the  Sphinx,  will 
endure.  A  work  of  art  will  bear  all  kinds  of  interpreta- 
tions; each  in  turn  finds  a  basis  in  it,  while  the  work 
itself,  because  it  represents  an  idea,  and  therefore  partakes 
of  the  richness  and  complexity  which  belong  to  ideas, 
suffices  for  all  and  survives  all.  A  portrait  proves  what- 
ever one  asks  of  it.  Even  in  its  forms  of  style,  in  the  dis- 
dainful generality  of  the  terms  in  which  the  story  is  told, 
in  the  terseness  of  the  sentences,  in  the  sequence  of  the 
images  and  of  the  pictures,  traced  with  classic  purity  and 
marvelous  vigor,  "  Eene"  maintains  its  monumental  charac- 
ter. Carved,  as  it  were,  in  material  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, with  the  tools  of  classical  art,  "  Eene"  is  the  irflmortaJ 
cameo  of  Chdteaubriand. 


86  AMIKL'8  JOURNAL. 

We  are  never  more  discontented  with  others  than  when 
we  are  discontented  with  ourselves.  The  consciousness  of 
wrong-doing  makes  us  irritable,  and  our  heart  in  its 
cunning  quarrels  with  what  is  outside  it,  in  order  that  it 
may  deafen  the  clamor  within. 


The  faculty  of  intellectual  metamorphosis  is  the  first 
and  indispensable  faculty  of  the  critic;  without  it  he  is 
not  apt  at  understanding  other  minds,  and  ought,  there- 
tore,  if  he  love  truth,  to  hold  his  peace.  The  conscien- 
tious critic  must  first  criticise  himself;  what  we  do  not 
understand  we  have  not  the  right  to  judge. 


June  14,  1858. — Sadness  and  anxiety  seem  to  be  increas- 
ing upon  me.  Like  cattle  in  a  burning  stable,  I  cling  to 
what  consumes  me,  to  the  solitary  life  which  does  me 
so  much  harm.  I  let  myself  be  devoured  by  inward 
suffering.     .     .     . 

Yesterday,  however,  I  struggled  against  this  fatal  ten- 
dency. I  went  out  into  the  country,  and  the  children's 
caresses  restored  to  me  something  of  serenity  and  calm. 
After  we  had  dined  out  of  doors  all  three  sang  some  songs 
and  school  hymns,  which  were  delightful  to  listen  to. 
The  spring  fairy  had  been  scattering  flowers  over  the 
fields  with  lavish  hands;  it  was  a  little  glimpse  of  para- 
dise. It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  serpent  too  was  not  far 
off.  Yesterday  there  was  a  robbery  close  by  the  house, 
and  death  had  visited  another  neighbor.  Sin  and  death 
lurk  around  every  Eden,  and  sometimes  within  it.  Hence 
the  tragic  beauty,  the  melancholy  poetry  of  human  destiny.' 
Flowers,  shade,  a  fine  view,  a  sunset  sky,  joy,  grace,  feel- 
ing, abundance  and  serenity,  tenderness  and  song — here 
you  have  the  element  of  beauty:  the  dangers  of  tlie  present 
and  the  treacheries  of  the  future,  here  is  the  element  of 
pathos.  The  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away.  Unless 
mtc  have  laid  hold  upon  eternity,  unless  we  take  the 
reiigious  view  of  life,  these  bright,  fleeting  days  can  only 
be  a  subject  for  terror.     Happiness  should  be  a  prayer-' 


A  MIEL'8  JO  URNAL.  8? 

and  grief  also.  Faith  in  the  moral  order,  in  the  protect- 
ing fatherhood  of  God,  appeared  to  me  in  all  its  serious 
sweetness. 

"  Pense,  aime,  agis  et  souffre  en  Dieu 
C'est  la  grande  science." 

July  18,  1858. — To-day  I  have  been  deeply  moved  by 
the  nostalgia  of  happiness  and  by  the  appeals  of  memory. 
,My  old  self,  the  dreams  which  used  to  haunt  me  in  Ger- 
'many,  passionate  impulses,  high  aspirations,  all  revived  in 
me  at  once  with  unexpected  force.  The  dread  lest  I 
should  have  missed  my  destiny  and  stifled  my  true  nature, 
lest  I  should  have  buried  myself  alive,  passed  through  me 
like  a  shudder.  Thirst  for  the  unknown,  passionate  love 
of  life,  the  yearning  for  the  blue  vaults  of  the  infinite  and 
the  strange  worlds  of  the  ineffable,  and  that  sad  ecstasy 
which  the  ideal  Avakens  in  its  beholders — all  these  carried 
me  away  in  a  whirlwind  of  feeling  that  I  cannot  describe. 
"Was  it  a  warning,  a  punishment,  a  temptation?  Was  it  a 
secret  protest,  or  a  violent  act  of  rebellion  on  the  part  of  a 
nature  which  is  unsatisfied? — the  last  agony  of  happiness 
and  of  a  hope  that  will  not  die? 

What  raised  all  this  storm?  Nothing  but  a  book — the 
first  number  of  the  ^^  Revue  Germanique."  The  articles 
of  Dollfus,  Eenan,  Littre,  Montegut,  Taillandier,  by 
recalling  to  me  some  old  and  favorite  subjects,  made  me 
forget  ten  wasted  years,  and  carried  me  back  to  my  univer- 
sity life.  I  was  tempted  to  throw  off  my  Genevese  garb 
and  to  set  off,  stick  in  hand,  for  any  country  that  might 
offer — stripped  and  poor,  but  still  young,  enthusiastic,  and 
alive,  full  of  ardor  and  of  faith. 

.  .  .  I  have  been  dreaming  alone  since  ten  o'clock  at 
the  window,  while  the  stars  twinkled  among  the  clouds, 
and  the  lights  of  the  neighbors  disappeared  one  by  one  in 
the  houses  round.  Dreaming  of  what?  Of  the  meaning 
of  this  tragic  comedy  which  we  call  life.  Aias!  alas!  I 
was  as  melancholy  as  the  preacher.  A  hundred  years 
seemed  to  me  a  dream,  life  a  breath,  and  everything  a 


88  AMIEVS  JO  URN  A  L. 

nothing.  What  tortures  of  mind  and  soul,  and  all  that 
we  may  die  in  a  few  minutes  I  What  should  interest  us, 
and  why? 

"  Le  temps  n'est  rien  pour  rfime,  enfant,  ta  vie  est  pleine, 
Et  ce  jour  vaut  cent  ans,  s'il  te  fait  trouver  Dieu." 

To  make  an  object  for  myself,  to  hope,  to  struggle, 
seems  to  me  more  and  more  impossible  and  amazing.  At 
twenty  I  was  the  embodiment  of  curiosity,  elasticity  and 
spiritual  ubiquity;  at  thirty-seven  I  have  not  a  will,  a 
desire,  or  a  talent  left;  the  fireworks  of  my  youth  have 
left  nothing  but  a  handful  of  ashes  behind  them. 

December  13,  1858. — Consider  yourself  a  refractory 
pupil  for  whom  you  are  responsible  as  mentor  and  tutor. 
To  sanctify  sinful  nature,  by  bringing  it  gradually  under 
the  control  of  the  angel  within  us,  by  the  help  of  a  holy 
God,  is  really  the  whole  of  Christian  pedagogy  and  of 
religious  morals.  Our  work — my  work — consists  in  tam- 
ing, subduing,  evangelizing  and  angelizing  the  evil  self; 
and  in  restoring  harmony  with  the  good  self.  Salvation 
lies  in  abandoning  the  evil  self  in  principle  and  in  taking 
refuge  with  the  other,  the  divine  self,  in  accepting  with 
courage  and  prayer  the  task  of  living  with  one's  own  demon, 
and  making  it  into  a  less  and  less  rebellious  instrument  of 
good.  The  Abel  in  us  must  labor  for  the  salvation  of  the 
Cain.  To  undertake  it  is  to  be  converted,  and  this  conver- 
sion must  be  repeated  day  by  day.  Abel  only  redeems 
and  touches  Cain  by  exercising  him  constantly  in  good 
works.  To  do  right  is  in  one  sense  an  act  of  violence;  it 
is  suffering,  expiation,  a  cross,  for  it  means  the  conquest 
and  enslavement  of  self.  In  another  sense  it  is  the 
apprenticeship  to  heavenly  things,  sweet  and  secret  joy, 
contentment  and  peace.  Sanctification  implies  perpetual 
martyrdom,  but  it  is  a  martyrdom  which  glorifies.  A 
crown  of  thorns  is  the  sad  eternal  symbol  of  the  life  of  the 
saints.  The  best  measure  of  the  profundity  of  any  reli- 
gious doctrine  is  given  by  its  conception  of  sin  and  the 
cure  of  sin. 


A  MI  EL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  89 

A  fluty  is  no  sooner  divined  than  from  that  very  moment 
it  becomes  binding  upon  us. 


Latent  genius  is  but  a  presumption.  Everything  that 
can  be,  is  bound  to  come  into  being,  and  what  never  comes 
into  being  is  nothing. 

July  14,  1859. — I  have  just  read  "Faust"  again.  Alas, 
every  year  I  am  fascinated  afresh  by  this  somber  figure, 
this  restless  life.  It  is  the  type  of  suffering  toward  which 
I  myself  gravitate,  and  I  am  always  finding  in  the  poem 
words  which  strike  straight  to  my  heart.  Immortal, 
malign,  accursed  type!  Specter  of  my  own  conscience, 
ghost  of  my  own  torment,  image  of  the  ceaseless  struggle 
of  the  soul  which  has  not  yet  found  its  true  aliment, 
its  peace,  its  faith — art  thou  not  the  typical  example  of  a 
life  which  feeds  upon  itself,  because  it  has  not  found  its 
God,  and  which,  in  its  wandering  flight  across  the  worlds, 
carries  within  it,  like  a  comet,  an  inextinguishable  flame  of 
desire,  and  an  agony  of  incurable  disillusion?  I  also  am 
reduced  to  nothingness,  and  I  shiver  on  the  brink  of  the 
great  empty  abysses  of  my  inner  being,  stifled  by  longing 
for  the  unknown,  consumed  with  the  thirst  for  the  infi- 
nite, prostrate  before  the  ineffable.  I  also  am  torn  some- 
times by  this  blind  passion  for  life,  these  desperate 
struggles  for  happiness,  though  more  often  I  am  a  prey  to 
complete  exhaustion  and  tactiturn  despair.  What  is  the 
reason  of  it  all?  Doubt — doubt  of  one's  self,  of  thought,  of 
men,  and  of  life — doubt  which  enervates  the  will  and 
weakens  all  our  powers,  which  makes  us  forget  God  and 
neglect  prayer  and  duty — that  restless  and  corrosive  doubt 
which  makes  existence  impossible  and  meets  all  hope  with 
satire. 

July  17,  1859. — Always  and  everywhere  salvation  is  tor- 
ture, deliverance  means  death,  and  peace  lies  in  sacrifice. 
If  we  would  win  our  pardon,  we  must  kiss  the  fiery  cruci- 
fix. Life  is  a  series  of  agonies,  a  Calvary,  which  we  can 
only  climb  on  bruised  and  aching  knees.  We  seek  distrac- 
tions; we  wander  away;  we  deafen  and  stupefy  ourselves 


90  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

that  we  may  escape  the  test;  we  turn  away  our  eyes  from 
the  via  dolorosa;  and  yet  there  is  no  help  for  it — we  must 
come  back  to  it  in  the  end.  What  we  have  to  recognize  is 
that  each  of  us  carries  within  himself  his  own  executioner — 
his  demon,  his  hell,  in  his  sin ;  that  his  sin  is  his  idol,  and 
that  this  idol,  which  seduces  the  desire  of  his  heart,  is  his 
curse. 

Die  unto  sin!  This  great  saying  of  Christianity  lemains 
still  the  highest  theoretical  solution  of  the  inner  life.  Only 
in  it  is  there  any  peace  of  conscience;  and  without  this 
peace  there  is  no  peace.     .     .     . 

I  havQ  just  read  seven  chapters  of  the  gospel.  Nothing 
calms  me  so  much.  To  do  one's  duty  in  love  and  obedi- 
ence, to  do  what  is  right — these  are  the  ideas  which  remain 
with  one.  To  live  in  God  and  to  do  his  work — this  is 
religion,  salvation,  life  eternal;  this  is  both  the  effect  and 
the  sign  of  love  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  this  is  the  new 
man  announced  by  Jesus,  and  the  new  life  into  which  we 
enter  by  the  second  birth.  To  be  born  again  is  to  renounce 
the  old  life,  sin,  and  the  natural  man,  and  to  take  to  one's 
self  another  principle  of  life.  It  is  to  exist  for  God  with 
another  self,  another  will,  another  love. 

August  9,  1859. — Nature  is  forgetful:  the  world  is 
almost  more  so.  However  little  the  individual  may  lend 
himself  to  it,  oblivion  soon  covers  him  like  a  shroud. 
This  rapid  and  inexorable  expansion  of  the  universal  life, 
which  covers,  overflows,  and  swallows  up  all  individual 
being,  which  effaces  our  existence  and  annuls  all  memory 
of  us,  fills  me  with  unbearable  melancholy.  To  be  born, 
to  struggle,  to  disappear — there  is  the  whole  ephemeral 
drama  of  human  life.  Except  in  a  few  hearts,  and  not 
even  always  in  one,  our  memory  passes  like  a  ripple  on  the 
water,  or  a  breeze  in  the  air.  If  nothing  in  us  is  immortal, 
what  a  small  thing  is  life.  Like  a  dream  which  trembles 
and  dies  at  the  first  glimmer  of  dawn,  all  my  past,  all  my 
present,  dissolve  in  me,  and  fall  away  from  my  conscious- 
ness at  the  moment  when  it  returns  upon  itself.  I  feel 
myself  then  stripped  and  empty,  like  a  convalescent  who 


AMIEU 8  JOURNAL.  91 

remembers  nothing.  My  travels,  my  reading,  my  studies, 
my  projects,  my  hopes,  have  faded  from  my  mind.  It  is  a 
singular  state.  All  my  faculties  drop  away  from  me  like 
a  cloak  that  one  takes  off,  like  the  chrysalis  case  of  a  larva. 
I  feel  myself  returning  into  a  more  elementary  form.  I 
behold  my  own  unclothing;  I  forget,  still  more  than  I  am 
forgotten;  I  pass  gently  into  the  grave  while  still  living, 
and  I  feel,  as  it  were,  the  indescribable  peace  of  annihila- 
tion, and  the  dim  quiet  of  the  Nirvana.  I  am  conscious 
of  the  river  of  time  passing  before  and  in  me,  of  the  impal- 
pable shadows  of  life  gliding  past  me,  but  nothing  breaks 
the  cateleptic  tranquillity  which  enwraps  me. 

I  come  to  understand  the  Buddhist  trance  of  the  Soufis, 
the  kief  of  the  Turk,  the  "ecstasy"  of  the  orientals,  and 
yet  I  am  conscious  all  the  time  that  the  pleasure  of  it  is 
deadly,  that,  like  the  use  of  opium  or  of  hasheesh,  it  is  a 
kind  of  slow  suicide,  inferior  in  all  respects  to  the  joys  of 
action,  to  the  sweetness  of  love,  to  the  beauty  of  enthu- 
siasm, to  the  sacred  savor  of  accomplished  duty. 

November  28,  1859. — This  evening  I  heard  the  first  lec- 
ture of  Ernest  Naville*  on  "The  Eternal  Life."  It  was 
admirably  sure  in  touch,  true,  clear,  and  noble  through- 
out. He  proved  that,  whether  we  would  or  no,  we  were 
bound  to  face  the  question  of  another  life.  Beauty  of 
character,  force  of  expression,  depth  of  thought,  were  all 
equally  visible  in  this  extemporized  address,  which  was  as 
closely  reasoned  as  a  book,  and  can  scarcely  be  disentangled 
from  the  quotations  of  which  it  was  full.  The  great 
room  of  the  Casino  was  full  to  the  doors,  and  one  saw  a 
fairly  large  number  of  white  heads. 

*  The  well-known  Genevese  preaclier  and  writer,  Ernest  Naville, 
the  son  of  a  Genevese  pastor,  was  born  in  1816,  became  professor  at 
the  Academy  of  Geneva  in  1844,  lost  his  post  after  the  revolution  of 
1846,  and,  except  for  a  short  interval  in  1860,  has  since  then  held 
no  official  position.  His  courses  of  theological  lectures,  delivered  at 
intervals  from  1859  onward,  were  an  extraordinary  success.  They 
were  at  first  confined  to  men  only,  and  an  audience  of  two  thousand 
persons  sometimes  assembled  to  hear  them.  To  literature  he  is 
mainly  known  as  the  editor  of  Maine  de  Biran's  Journal. 


92  AMTEL'a  JOURNAL. 

December  13, 1859.— Fifth  lecture  on  «  The  Eternal  Life' 
("The  Proof  of  the  Gospel  by  the  Supernatural.")  The 
same  tjilent  and  great  eloquence;  but  the  orator  does  not 
understand  that  the  supernatural  must  either  be  histori- 
cally proved,  or,  supposing  it  cannot  be  proved,  that  it 
must  renounce  all  pretensions  to  overstep  the  domain  of 
faith  and  to  encroach  upon  that  of  history  and  science. 
He  quotes  Strauss,  Renan,  Scherer,  but  he  touches  only 
the  letter  of  them,  not  the  spirit.  Everywhere  one  sees 
the  Cartesian  dualism  and  a  striking  want  of  the  genetic 
historical,  and  critical  sense.  The  idea  of  a  living  evolu 
tion  has  not  penetrated  into  the  consciousness  of  the  orator, 
With  every  intention  of  dealing  with  things  as  they  are 
he  remains,  in  spite  of  himself,  subjective  and  oratorical 
There  is  the  inconvenience  of  handling  a  matter  polemi 
cally  instead  of  in  the  spirit  of  the  student.  Naville's 
moral  sense  is  too  strong  for  his  discernment  and  prevents 
him  from  seeing  what  he  does  not  wish  to  see.  In  his 
metaphysic,  will  is  placed  above  intelligence,  and  in  his 
personality  the  character  is  superior  to  the  understanding, 
as  one  might  logically  expect.  And  the  consequence  is, 
that  he  may  prop  up  what  is  tottering,  but  he  makes  no 
conquests;  he  may  help  to  preserve  existing  truths  and 
beliefs,  but  he  is  destitute  of  initiative  or  vivifying  power. 
He  is  a  moralizing  but  not  a  suggestive  or  stimulating 
influence.  A  popularizer,  apologist  and  orator  of  the 
greatest  merit,  he  is  a  schoolman  at  bottom ;  his  arguments 
are  of  the  same  type  as  those  of  the  twelfth  century,  and 
he  defends  Protestantism  in  the  same  way  in  which  Cathol- 
icism has  been  commonly  defended.  The  best  way  of 
demonstrating  the  insufficiency  of  this  point  of  view  is  to 
show  by  history  how  incompletely  it  has  been  superseded. 
The  chimera  of  a  simple  and  absolute  truth  is  wholly 
Catholic  and  anti-historic.  The  mind  of  Naville  is  mathe- 
matical and  his  objects  moral.  His  strength  lies  in  mathe- 
maticizing  morals.  As  soon  as  it  becomes  a  question  of 
development,  metamorphosis,  organization — as  soon  as  he 
is  brought  into  contact  with  the  mobile  world  of  actual 


AMIKL'S  JOURNAL.  93 

life,  especially  of  the  spiritual  life,  he  has  no  longer  any- 
thing serviceable  to  say.  Language  is  for  him  a  system  of 
fixed  signs;  a  man,  a  people,  a  book,  are  so  many  geomet- 
rical figures  of  which  we  have  only  to  discover  the 
properties. 

December  15th. — Naville's  sixth  lecture,  an  admirable 
one,  because  it  did  nothing  more  than  expound  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  of  eternal  life.  As  an  extempore  perform- 
ance— marvelously  exact,  finished,  clear  and  noble,  marked 
by  a  strong  and  disciplined  eloquence.  There  was  not  a 
single  reservation  to  make  in  the  name  of  criticism,  his- 
tory or  philosophy.  It  was  all  beautiful,  noble,  true  and 
pure.  It  seems  to  me  that  Naville  has  improved  in  the 
art  of  speech  during  these  latter  years.  He  has  always  had 
a  kind  of  dignified  and  didactic  beauty,  but  he  has  now 
added  to  it  the  contagious  cordiality  and  warmth  of  feeling 
which  complete  the  orator;  he  moves  the  whole  man, 
beginning  with  the  intellect  but  finishing  with  the  heart. 
He  is  now  very  near  to  the  true  virile  eloquence,  and 
possesses  one  species  of  it  indeed  very  nearly  in  perfection. 
He  has  arrived  at  the  complete  command  of  the  resources 
of  his  own  nature,  at  an  adequate  and  masterly  expression 
of  himself.  Such  expression  is  the  joy  and  glory  of  the 
oratorical  artist  as  of  every  other.  Naville  is  rapidly 
becoming  a  model  in  the  art  of  premeditated  and  self- 
controlled  eloquence. 

There  is  another  kind  of  eloquence — that  which  seems 
inspired,  which  finds,  discovers,  and  illuminates  by  bounds 
and  flashes,  which  is  born  in  the  sight  of  the  audience  and 
transports  it.  Such  is  not  Naville's  kind.  Is  it  better 
worth  having?     I  do  not  know. 


Every  real  need  is  stilled,  and  every  vice  is  stimulated 
by  satisfaction. 


Obstinacy  is  will  asserting  itself  without  being  able  to 
justify  itself.  It  is  persistence  without  a  plausible  motive. 
It  is  the  tenacity  of  self-love  substituted  for  the  tenacity 
of  reason  or  conscience.. 


n4  AMIEUB  JO  URN  A  L. 

It  is  not  what  he  has,  nor  even  what  he  does,  which 
directly  expresses  the  worth  of  a  man,  but  what  he  is. 

What  comfort,  what  strength,  what  economy  there  is  in 
order — material  order,  intellectual  order,  moral  order.  To 
know  where  one  is  going  and  what  one  wishes — this  is 
order;  to  keep  one's  word  and  one's  engagements — again 
order;  to  have  everything  ready  under  one's  hand,  to  be 
able  to  dispose  of  all  one's  forces,  and  to  have  all  one'a 
means  of  whatever  kind  under  command — still  order;  to 
discipline  one's  habits,  one's  effort,  one's  wishes;  to  organ- 
ize one's  life,  to  distribute  one's  time,  to  take  the  measure  of 
one's  duties  and  make  one's  rights  respected ;  to  employ 
one's  capital  and  resources,  one's  talent  and  one's  chances 
profitably — all  this  belongs  to  and  is  included  in  the  word 
order.  Order  means  light  and  peace,  inward  liberty  and 
free  command  over  one's  self ;  order  is  power.  -Esthetic  and 
moral  beauty  consist,  the  first  in  a  true  perception  of 
order,  and  the  second  in  submission  to  it,  and  in  the  reali- 
zation of  it,  by,  in,  and  around  one's  self.  Order  is  man's 
greatest  need  and  his  true  well-being. 

April  17,  I860.— The  cloud  has  lifted;  I  am  better.  I 
have  been  able  to  take  my  usual  walk  on  the  Treille;  all 
the  buds  were  opening  and  the  young  shoots  were  green 
on  all  the  branches.  The  rippling  of  clear  water,  the 
merriment  of  birds,  the  young  freshness  of  plants,  and 
the  noisy  play  of  children,  produce  a  strange  effect  upon 
an  invalid.  Or  rather  it  was  strange  to  me  to  be  looking 
at  such  things  with  the  eyes  of  a  sick  and  dying  man ;  it 
was  my  first  introduction  to  a  new  phase  of  experience. 
There  is  a  deep  sadness  in  it.  One  feels  one's  self  cut  off 
from  nature — outside  her  communion  as  it  were.  She  is 
strength  and  joy  and  eternal  health.  "Room  for  the 
living,"  she  cries  to  us;  "do  not  come  to  darken  my  blue 
sky  with  your  miseries;  each  has  his  turn:  begone!"  But 
to  strengthen  our  own  courage,  we  must  say  to  ourselves, 
No;  it  is  good  for  the  world  to  see  suffering  and  weakness; 
the  sight  adds  zest  to  the  joy  of  the  happy  and  the  care- 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  95 

less,  and  is  rich  in  warning  for  all  who  think.  Life  has 
been  lent  to  us,  and  we  owe  it  to  our  traveling  companions 
to  let  them  see  what  use  we  make  of  it  to  the  end.  We 
must  show  our  brethren  both  how  to  live  and  how  to  die. 
These  first  summonses  of  illness  have  besides  a  divine 
value;  they  give  us  glimpses  behind  the  scenes  of  life; 
they  teach  us  something  of  its  awful  reality  and  its  inevi 
table  end.  They  teach  us  sympathy.  They  warn  us  to 
redeem  the  time  while  it  is  yet  day.  They  awaken  in  us 
gratitude  for  the  blessings  which  are  still  ours,  and  humil- 
ity for  the  gifts  which  are  in  us.  So  that,  evils  though 
they  seem,  they  are  really  an  appeal  to  us  from  on  high,  a 
touch  of  God's  fatherly  scourge. 

How  frail  a  thing  is  health,  and  what  a  thin  envelope 
protects  our  life  against  being  swallowed  up  from  without, 
or  disorganized  from  within!  A  breath,  and  the  boat 
springs  a  leak  or  founders;  a  nothing,  and  all  is  endan- 
gered ;  a  passing  cloud,  and  all  is  darkness !  Life  is  indeed 
a  flower  which  a  morning  withers  and  the  beat  of  a  passing 
wing  breaks  down;  it  is  the  widow's  lamp,  which  the 
slightest  blast  of  air  extinguishes.  In  order  to  realize  the 
poetry  which  clings  to  morning  roses,  one  needs  to  have  Just 
escaped  from  the  claws  of  that  vulture  which  we  call  ill- 
ness. The  foundation  and  the  heightening  of  all  things 
is  the  graveyard.  The  only  certainty  in  this  world  of  vain 
agitations  and  endless  anxieties,  is  the  certainty  of  death, 
and  that  which  is  the  foretaste  and  small  change  of  death 
— pain. 

As  long  as  we  turn  our  eyes  away  from  this  implacable 
reality,  the  tragedy  of  life  remains  hidden  from  us.  As 
soon  as  we  look  at  it  face  to  face,  the  true  proportions  of 
everything  reappear,  and  existence  becomes  solemn  again. 
It  is  made  clear  to  us  that  we  have  been  frivolous  and 
petulant,  intractable  and  forgetful,  and  that  we  have  been 
wrong. 

We  must  die  and  give  an  account  of  our  life :  here  in  all 
its  simplicity  is  the  teaching  of  sickness!  "Do  with  all 
diligence  Avhat  you  have  to  do;  reconcile  yourself  with  the 


96  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

law  of  the  universe;  think  of  your  duty;  prepare  yourself 
for  departure:"  such  is  the  cry  of  conscience  and  of 
reason. 

May  3,  1860. — Edgar  Quinet  has  attempted  everything: 
ho  has  aimed  at  nothing  but  the  greatest  things;  he  is 
rich  in  ideas,  a  master  of  splendid  imagery,  serious,  enthu- 
siastic, courageous,  a  noble  writer.  How  is  it,  then,  that  he 
has  not  more  reputation?  Because  he  is  too  pure;  be- 
cause he  is  too  uniformly  ecstatic,  fantastic,  inspired 
— a  mood  which  soon  palls  on  Frenchmen.  Because 
he  is  too  single-minded,  candid,  theoretical,  and  spec- 
ulative, too  ready  to  believe  in  the  power  of  words 
and  of  ideas,  too  expansive  and  confiding;  while  at  the 
same  time  he  is  lacking  in  the  qualities  which  amuse 
clever  people — in  sarcasm,  irony,  cunning  and  finesse.  He 
is  an  idealist  reveling  in  color:  a  Platonist  brandishing 
the  thyrsus  of  the  Menads.  At  bottom  his  is  a  mind  of  no 
particular  country.  It  is  in  vain  that  he  satirizes  Germany 
and  abuses  England;  he  does  not  make  himself  anymore 
of  a  Frenchman  by  doing  so.  It  is  a  northern  intellect 
wedded  to  a  southern  imagination,  but  the  marriage  has 
not  been  a  happy  one.  He  has  the  disease  of  chronic 
magniloquence,  of  inveterate  sublimity;  abstractions  for 
him  become  personified  and  colossal  beings,  which  act  or 
speak  in  colossal  fashion;  he  is  intoxicated  with  the  infi- 
nite. But  one  feels  all  the  time  that  his  creations  are  only 
individual  monologues;  he  cannot  escape  from  the  bounds 
of  a  subjective  lyrism.  Ideas,  passions,  anger,  hopes, 
complaints — he  himself  is  present  in  them  all.  We  never 
have  the  delight  of  escaping  from  his  magic  circle,  of 
seeing  truth  as  it  is,  of  entering  into  relation  with  the 
phenomena  and  the  beings  of  whom  he  speaks,  with  the 
reality  of  things.  This  imprisonment  of  the  author  within 
his  personality  looks  like  conceit.  But  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  because  the  heart  is  generous  that  the  mind  is  egotis- 
tical. It  is  because  Quinet  thinks  himself  so  much  of  a 
Frenchman  that  he  is  it  so  little.  These  ironical  compen- 
sations of  destiny  are  very  familiar  to  me :  I  have  often 


AMIRUS  JOURNAL.  97 

observed  them.  Man  is  nothing  but  contradiction :  the  less 
he  knows  it  the  more  dupe  he  is.  In  consequence  of  his 
small  capacity  for  seeing  things  as  they  are,  Quinet  has 
neither  miich  accuracy  nor  much  balance  of  mind.  He 
recalls  Victor  Hugo,  Avith  much  less  artistic  power  but 
more  historical  sense.  His  principal  gift  is  a  great  com- 
mand of  imagery  and  symbolism.  He  seems  to  me  a 
Gorres*  transplanted  to  Tranche  Comte,  a  sort  of  super- 
numerary prophet,  with  whom  his  nation  hardly  knows 
what  to  do,  seeing  that  she  loves  neither  enigmas  nor 
ecstasy  nor  inflation  of  language,  and  that  the  intoxication 
of  the  tripod  bores  her. 

The  real  excellence  of  Quinet  seems  to  me  to  lie  in  his 
historical  works  ("Marnix,"  "L'ltalie,"  "LesRoumains"), 
and  especially  in  his  studies  of  nationalities.  He  was  born 
to  understand  these  souls,  at  once  more  vast  and  more 
sublime  than  individual  souls. 

{Later). — I  have  been  translating  into  verse  that  page  of 
Goethe's  "Faust"  in  which  is  contained  his  pantheistic 
confession  of  faith.  The  translation  is  not  bad,  I  think. 
But  what  a  difference  between  the  two  languages  in  the 
matter  of  precision!  It  is  like  the  difference  between 
stump  and  graving-tool — the  one  showing  the  effort,  the 
other  noting  the  result  of  the  act;  the  one  making  you  feel 
all  that  is  merely  dreamed  or  vague,  formless  or  vacant,  the 
other  determining,  fixing,  giving  shape  even  to  the  indefi- 
nite; the  one  representing  the  cause,  the  force,  the  limbo 
whence  things  issue,  the  other  the  things  themselves. 
German  has  the  obscure  depth  of  the  infinite,  French  the 
clear  brightness  of  the  finite. 

May  5,  1860. — To  grow  old  is  more  difficult  than  to  die, 
because  to  renounce  a  good  once  and  for  all,  costs  less  than 
to  renew  the  sacrifice  day  by  day  and  in  detail.  To  bear 
"with  one's  own  decay,  to  accept  one's  own  lessening 
capacity,  is  a  harder  and  rarer  virtue  than  to  face  death, 

*  .Joseph  Gcerres,  a  German  mystic  and  disciple  of  Schelling.  He 
published,  among  other  works,  "  Mythengeschichte  der  Asiatischen 
Welt,"  and  "  Christliche  Mystik" 


98  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

There  is  a  halo  round  tragic  and  premature  death;  there 
is  but  a  long  sadness  in  declining  strength.  But  look 
closer:  so  studied,  a  resigned  and  religious  old  age  will 
often  move  us  more  than  the  heroic  ardor  of  young  years. 
The  maturity  of  the  soul  is  worth  more  than  the  first 
brilliance  of  its  faculties,  or  the  plentitude  of  its  strength, 
and  the  eternal  in  us  can  but  profit  from  all  the  ravages 
made  by  time.     There  is  comfort  in  this  thought. 

May  22,  1860. — There  is  in  me  a  secret  incapacity  for 
expressing  my  true  feeling,  for  saying  what  pleases  others, 
for  bearing  witness  to  the  present— a  reserve  which  I  have 
often  noticed  in  myself  with  vexation.  My  heart  never 
dares  to  speak  seriously,  either  because  it  is  ashamed  of 
being  thought  to  flatter,  or  afraid  lest  it  should  not  find 
exactly  the  right  expression.  I  am  always  trifling  witK 
the  present  moment.  Feeling  in  me  is  retrospective.  My 
refractory  nature  is  slow  to  recognize  the  solemnity  of  the- 
hour  in  which  I  actually  stand.  An  ironical  instinct, 
born  of  timidity,  makes  me  pass  lightly  over  what  I  have 
on  pretence  of  waiting  for  some  other  thing  at  some  other 
time.  Fear  of  being  carried  away,  and  distrust  of  myself 
pursue  me  even  in  moments  of  emotion;  by  a  sort  of 
invincible  pride,  I  can  never  persuade  myself  to  say  to  any 
particular  instant:  "Stay!  decide  for  me;  be  a  supreme 
moment!  stand  out  from  the  monotonous  depths  of  eter- 
nity and  mark  a  unique  experience  in  my  life !"  I  trifle, 
even  with  happiness,  out  of  distrust  of  the  future. 

May  27,  1860.  (Sunday). — I  heard  this  morning  a  ser- 
mon on  the  Holy  Spirit — good  but  insufficient.  Why  was 
I  not  edified?  Because  there  was  no  unction.  Why  was. 
there  no  unction?  Because  Christianity  from  this  rational- 
istic point  of  view  is  a  Christianity  of  dignity,  not  of  hu- 
mility. Penitence,  the  struggles  of  weakness,  austerity, 
find  no  place  in  it.  The  law  is  effaced,  holiness  and  mys- 
ticism evaporate;  the  specifically  Christian  accent  is  want- 
ing. My  impression  is  always  the  same — faith  is  made  a 
dull  poor  thing  by  these  attempts  to  reduce  it  to  simple 
moral  psychology.     I  am  oppressed  by  a  feeling  of  inap- 


A  M1EU8  JO  URN  A  L.  99 

propriateness  and  malaise  at  the  sight  of  philosophy  in  the 
pulpit.  "  They  have  taken  away  my  Saviour,  and  I  know 
not  where  they  have  laid  him;"  so  the  simple  folk  have  a 
right  to  say,  and  I  repeat  it  with  them.  Thus,  while 
some  shock  me  by  their  sacerdotal  dogmatism,  others  repel 
me  by  their  rationalizing  laicism.  It  seems  to  me  that 
good  preaching  ought  to  combine,  as  Schleiermacher  did, 
perfect  moral  humility  with  energetic  independence  of 
thought,  a  profound  sense  of  sin  with  respect  for  criticism 
and  a  passion  for  truth. 


The  free  being  who  abandons  the  conduct  of  himself, 
yields  himself  to  Satan;  in  the  moral  world  there  is  no 
ground  without  a  master,  and  the  waste  lands  belong  to 
the  Evil  One. 

The  poetry  of  childhood  consists  in  simulating  and  fore- 
stalling the  future,  just  as  the  poetry  of  mature  life  con- 
sists often  in  going  backward  to  some  golden  age.  Poetry 
is  always  in  the  distance.  The  whole  art  of  moral  govern- 
ment lies  in  gaining  a  directing  and  shaping  hold  over  the 
poetical  ideals  of  an  age. 

January  9,  1861. — I  have  just  come  from  the  inaugural 
lecture  of  Victor  Cherbuliez  in  a  state  of  bewildered  ad- 
miration. As  a  lecture  it  was  exquisite :  if  it  was  a  recita- 
tion of  prepared  matter,  it  was  admirable;  if  an  extem- 
pore performance,  it  was  amazing.  In  the  face  of  supe- 
riority and  perfection,  says  Schiller,  we  have  but  one 
resource — to  love  them,  which  is  what  I  have  done.  I  had 
the  pleasure,  mingled  with  a  little  surprise,  of  feeling  in 
myself  no  sort  of  jealousy  toward  this  young  conqueror. 

March  15th. — This  last  lecture  in  Victor  Cherbuliez's 
course  on  "Chivalry,"  which  is  just  over,  showed  the  same 
magical  power  over  his  subject  as  that  with  which  he  began 
the  series  two  months  ago.  It  was  a  triumph  and  a  har- 
vest of  laurels.  Cervantes,  Ignatius  Loyola,  and  the  heri- 
tage of  chivalry — that  is  to  say,  individualism,  honor,  the 
poetry  of  the  present  and  the  poetry  of  contrasts,  modern 
liberty  and  progress — have  been  the  subjects  of  this 
lecture. 


100  A  MIEL8  JO  URNAL. 

The  general  impression  left  upon  me  all  along  has  been 
one  of  admiration  for  the  union  in  him  of  extraordinary 
skill  in  execution  with  admirable  cultivation  of  mind. 
With  what  freedom  of  spirit  he  uses  and  wields  his  vast 
erudition,  and  what  capacity  for  close  attention  he  must 
have  to  be  able  to  carry  the  weight  of  a  whole  improvised 
speech  with  the  same  ease  as  though  it  were  a  single  sen- 
tence !  I  do  not  know  if  I  am  partial,  but  I  find  no  ooca- 
sion  for  anything  but  praise  in  this  young  wizard  and  his 
lectures.  The  fact  is,  that  in  my  opinion  we  have  now 
one  more  first  rate  mind,  one  more  master  of  language 
among  us.  This  course,  with  the  "  Causeries  Atheniennes," 
seems  to  me  to  establish  Victor  Cherbuliez's  position  at 
Geneva. 

March  17,  1861. — This  afternoon  a  homicidal  languor 
seized  hold  upon  me — disgust,  weariness  of  life,  mortal  sad- 
ness. I  wandered  out  into  the  churchyard,  hoping  to  find 
quiet  and  peace  there,  and  so  to  reconcile  myself  with 
duty.  Vain  dream !  The  place  of  rest  itself  had  become 
inhospitable.  Workmen  were  stripping  and  carrying  away 
the  turf,  the  trees  were  dry,  the  wind  cold,  the  sky  gray — 
something  arid,  irreverent,  and  prosaic  dishonored  the 
resting-place  of  the  dead.  I  was  struck  with  something 
wanting  in  our  national  feeling — respect  for  the  dead,  the 
poetry  of  the  tomb,  the  piety  of  memory.  Our  churches 
are  too  little  open ;  our  churchyards  too  much.  The  result 
in  both  cases  is  the  same.  The  tortured  and  trembling 
heart  which  seeks,  outside  the  scene  of  its  daily  miseries, 
to  find  some  place  where  it  may  pray  in  peace,  or  pour  out 
its  grief  before  God,  or  meditate  in  the  presence  of  eternal 
things,  with  us  has  nowhere  to  go.  Our  church  ignores 
these  wants  of  the  soul  instead  of  divining  and  meeting 
them.  She  shows  very  little  compassionate  care  for  her 
children,  very  little  wise  consideration  fov  the  more  deli- 
cate griefs,  and  no  intuition  of  the  deeper  mysteries  of  ten- 
derness, no  religious  suavity.  Under  a  pretext  of  spiritual- 
ity we  are  always  checking  legitimate  aspirations.  We 
have  lost  the  mystical  sense;  and  what  is  religion  without 
mysticism?    A  rose  without  perfume. 


AMIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  lOJ 

The  words  repentance  and  sanctification  are  always  on 
our  lips.  But  adoration  and  consolation  are  also  two 
essential  elements  in  religion,  and  we  ought  perhaps  to 
make  more  room  for  them  than  we  do. 

April  28,  1861. — In  the  same  way  as  a  dream  transforms 
according  to  its  nature,  the  incidents  of  sleep,  so  the  soul 
converts  into  psychical  phenomena  the  ill-defined  impressions 
of  the  organism .  A  n  uncomfortable  attitu  de  becomes  night- 
mare ;  an  atmosphere  charged  with  storm  becomes  moral 
torment.  Not  mechanically  and  by  direct  causality;  but 
imagination  and  conscience  engender,  according  to  their 
own  nature,  analogous  effects;  they  translate  into  their 
own  language,  and  cast  into  their  own  mold,  whatever 
reaches  them  from  outside.  Thus  dreams  may  be  helpful 
to  medicine  and  to  divination,  and  states  of  weather  may 
stir  up  and  set  free  within  the  soul  vague  and  hidden 
evils.  The  suggestions  and  solicitations  which  act  upon 
life  come  from  outside,  but  life  produces  nothing  but 
itself  after  all.  Originality  consists  in  rapid  and  clear 
reaction  against  these  outside  influences,  in  giving  to  them 
our  individual  stamp.  To  think  is  to  withdraw,  as  it 
were,  into  one's  impression — to  make  it  clear  to  one's  self, 
and  then  to  put  it  forth  in  the  shape  of  a  personal  judg- 
ment. In  this  also  consists  self-deliverance,  self-enfran- 
chisement, self-conquest.  All  that  comes  from  outside  is 
a  question  to  which  we  owe  an  answer — a  pressure  to  be 
met  by  counter-pressure,  if  we  are  to  remain  free  and 
living  agents.  The  development  of  our  unconscious 
nature  follows  the  astronomical  laws  of  Ptolemy;  every- 
thing in  it  is  change — cycle,  epi-cycle,  and  metamorphosis. 

Every  man  then  possesses  in  himself  the  analogies  and 
rudiments  of  all  things,  of  all  beings,  and  of  all  forms  of 
life.  He  who  knows  how  to  divine  the  small  beginnings, 
the  germs  and  symptoms  of  things,  can  retrace  in  himself 
the  universal  mechanism,  and  divine  by  intuition  the 
series  which  he  himself  will  not  finish,  such  as  vegetable 
and  animal  existences,  human  passions  and  crises,  the 
diseases   of  the  soul  and  those  of  the  body.     The  mind 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALlrCi^r  .A 
^AhTTA  RARRARA  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


103  AMI KL'S  JOURNAL. 

which  is  subtle  and  powerful  may  penetrate  all  these  poten- 
tialities, and  make  every  point  flash  out  the  world  which 
it  contains.  This  is  to  be  conscious  of  and  to  possess  the 
general  life,  this  is  to  enter  into  the  divine  sanctuary  of 
contemplatioin. 

September  12,  1861. — In  me  an  intellect  which  would 
fain  forget  itself  in  things,  is  contradicted  by  a  heart 
which  yearns  to  live  in  human  beings.  The  uniting  link  of 
the  two  contradictions  is  the  tendency  toward  self-aban- 
donment, toward  ceasing  to  will  and  exist  for  one's  self, 
toward  laying  down  one's  own  personality,  and  losing — 
dissolving — one's  self  in  love  and  contemplation.  What  I 
lack  above  all  things  is  character,  will,  individuality. 
But,  as  always  happens,  the  appearance  is  exactly  the 
contrary  of  the  reality,  and  my  outward  life  the  reverse  of 
my  true  and  deepest  aspiration.  I  whose  whole  being — 
heart  and  intellect — thirsts  to  absorb  itself  in  reality,  in  its 
neighbor  man,  in  nature  and  in  God,  I,  whom  solitude 
devours  and  destroys,  I  shut  myself  up  in  solitude  and 
seem  to  delight  only  in  myself  and  to  be  sufficient  for  my- 
self. Pride  and  delicacy  of  soul,  timidity  of  heart,  have 
made  me  thus  do  violence  to  all  my  instincts  and  invert 
the  natural  order  of  my  life.  It  is  not  astonishing  that 
I  should  be  unintelligible  to  others.  In  fact  I  have  always 
avoided  what  attracted  me,  and  turned  my  back  upon  the 
point  where  secretly  I  desired  to  be. 

"  Deux  instincts  sont  en  moi:  vertige  et  deraison; 
J'ai  I'effroi  du  bonheur  et  la  soif  du  poison." 

It  is  the  Nemesis  which  dogs  the  steps  of  life,  the  secret 
instinct  and  power  of  death  in  us,  which  labors  continually 
for  the  destruction  of  all  that  seeks  to  be,  to  take  form,  to 
exist;  it  is  the  passion  for  destruction,  the  tendency 
toward  suicide,  identifying  itself  with  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  This  antipathy  toward  all  that  does  one 
good,  all  that  nourishes  and  heals,  is  it  not  a  mere  varia- 
tion of  the  antipathy  to  moral  light  and  regenerative 
truth?     Does  not  sin  also  create  a  thirst  for  death,  a  grow- 


AMIKL'S  JOURNAL.  103 

ing  passion  for  what  does  harm?  Discouragement  has 
been  my  sin.  Discouragement  is  an  act  of  unbelief. 
Growing  weakness  has  been  the  consequence  of  it;  the 
principle  of  death  in  me  and  the  influence  of  the  Prince 
of  Darkness  have  waxed  stronger  together.  My .  will  in 
abdicating  has  yielded  up  the  scepter  to  instinct;  and  as 
the  corruption  of  the  best  results  m  what  is  worst,  love  of 
the  ideal,  tenderness,  unworldliness,  have  led  me  to  a  state 
in  which  I  shrink  from  hope  and  crave  for  annihilation. 
Action  is  my  cross. 

October  11,  1861.  {Heidelberg). — After  eleven  days  jour- 
ney, here  I  am  under  the  roof  of  my  friends,  in  their  hos- 
pitable house  on  the  banks  of  the  Neckar,  with  its  garden 
climbing  up  the  side  of  the  Heiligenberg.  .  .  Blazing 
sun ;  my  room  is  flooded  with  light  and  warmth.  Sitting 
opposite  the  Geisberg,  I  write  to  the  murmur  of  the 
Neckar,  which  rolls  its  green  waves,  flecked  with  silver, 
exactly  beneath  the  balcony  on  which  my  room  opens.  A 
great  barge  coming  from  Heilbron  passes  silently  under 
my  eyes,  while  the  wheels  of  a  cart  which  I  cannot  see 
are  dimly  heard  on  the  road  which  skirts  the  river.  Dis- 
tant voices  of  children,  of  cocks,  of  chirping  sparrows,  the 
clock  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  chimes  the 
hour,  serve  to  gauge,  without  troubling,  the  general  tran- 
quility of  the  scene.  One  feels  the  hours  gently  slipping 
by,  and  time,  instead  of  flying,  seems  to  hover.  A  peace 
beyond  words  steals  into  my  heart,  an  impression  of  morn- 
ing grace,  of  fresh  country  poetry  which  brings  back  the 
sense  of  youth,  and  has  the  true  German  savor.  .  .  . 
Two  decked  barges  carrying  red  flags,  each  with  a  train  of 
flat  boats  filled  with  coal,  are  going  up  the  river  and  mak- 
ing their  way  under  the  arch  of  the  great  stone  bridge. 
I  stand  at  the  window  and  see  a  whole  perspective  of  boats 
sailing  in  both  directions;  the  Neckar  is  as  animated  as 
the  street  of  some  great  capital;  and  already  on  the  slope 
of  the  wooded  mountain,  streaked  by  the  smoke-wreaths 
of  the  town,  the  castle  throwS  its  shadow  like  a  vast 
drapery,   and  traces  the  outlines  of  its  battlements  and 


104  AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL. 

turrets.  Higher  up,  in  front  of  me,  rises  the  dark  profile 
of  the  Molkenkur;  higher  still,  in  relief  against  the  daz- 
zling east,  I  can  distinguish  the  misty  forms  of  the  two 
towers  of  the  Kaiserstuhl  and  the  Trutzheinrich. 

But  enough  of  landscape.  My  host.  Dr.  George  Weber, 
tells  me  that  his  manual  of  history  is  translated  into  Polish, 
Dutch,  Spanish,  Italian,  and  French,  and  that  of  his  great 
"  Universal  History" — three  volumes  are  already  published. 
What  astonishing  power  of  work,  what  prodigious  tenacity, 
what  solidity !     0  deutscher  Fleiss! 

November  25,  1861. — To  understand  a  drama  requires 
the  same  mental  operation  as  to  understand  an  existence,  a 
biography,  a  man.  It  is  a  putting  back  of  the  bird  into 
the  egg,  of  the  plant  into  its  seed,  a  reconstitution  of  the 
whole  genesis  of  the  being  in  question.  Art  is  simply  the 
bringing  into  relief  of  the  obscure  thought  of  nature;  a 
simplification  of  the  lines,  a  falling  into  place  of  groups 
otherwise  invisible.  The  fire  of  inspiration  brings  out,  as 
it  were,  designs  traced  beforehand  in  sympathetic  ink. 
The  mysterious  grows  clear,  the  confused  plain;  what  is 
complicated  becomes  simple — what  is  accidental,  necessary. 

In  short,  art  reveals  nature  by  interpreting  its"  inten- 
tions and  formulating  its  desires.  Every  ideal  is  the  key 
of  a  long  enigma.     The  great  artist  is  the  simplifier. 

Every  man  is  a  tamer  of  wild  beasts,  and  these  wild 
beasts  are  his  passions.  To  draw  their  teeth  and  claws,  to 
muzzle  and  tame  them,  to  turn  them  into  servants  and 
domestic  animals,  fuming,  perhaps,  but  submissive — in 
this  consists  personal  education. 

February  3,  1862. — Self-criticism  is  the  corrosive  of  all 
oratorical  or  literary  spontaneity.  The  thirst  to  know 
turned  upon  the  self  is  punished,  like  the  curiosity  of 
Psyche,  by  the  flight  of  the  thing  desired.  Force  should 
remain  a  mystery  to  itself;  as  soon  as  it  tries  to  penetrate 
its  own  secret  it  vanishes  away.  The  hen  with  the  golden 
eggs  becomes  unfruitful  'as  soon  as  she  tries  to  find  out 
why  her  eggs  are  golden.     The  consciousness  of  conscious- 


AMIELS  JOURNAL.  105 

ness  is  the  term  and  end  of  analysis.  True,  bnt  analysis 
pushed  to  extremity  devours  itself,  like  the  Egyptian 
serpent.  We  must  give  it  some  external  matter  to  crush 
and  dissolve  if  we  wish  to  prevent  its  destruction  by  its  ac- 
tion upon  itself.  "We  are,  and  ought  to  be,  obscure  to 
ourselves,"  said  Goethe,  "turned  outward,  and  working 
upon  the  world  which  surrounds  us."  Outward  radiation 
constitutes  health ;  a  too  continuous  concentration  upon 
what  is  within  brings  us  back  to  vacuity  and  blank.  It  is 
better  that  life  should  dilate  and  extend  itself  in  ever- 
widening  circles,  than  that  it  should  be  perpetually  dimin- 
ished and  compressed  by  solitary  contraction.  Warmth 
tends  to  make  a  globe  out  of  an  atom ;  cold,  to  reduce  a 
globe  to  the  dimensions  of  an  atom.  Analysis  has  been  to 
me  self-annulling,  self-destroying. 

April  23,  1862.  {Mornex  sur  SaUve). — I  was  awakened 
by  the  twittering  of  the  birds  at  a  quarter  to  five,  and  saw, 
as  I  threw  open  my  windows,  the  yellowing  crescent  of  the 
moon  looking  in  upon  me,  while  the  east  was  just  faintly 
whitening.  An  hour  later  it  was  delicious  out  of  doors. 
The  anemones  were  still  closed,  the  apple-trees  in  full 
flower: 

"  Ces  beaux  pommiers,  coverts  de  leurs  fleurs  etoileeus, 
Neige  odorante  du  printemps." 

The  view  was  exquisite,  and  nature,  in  full  festival,  spread 
freshness  and  joy  around  her.  I  breakfasted,  read  the 
paper,  and  here  I  am.  The  ladies  of  the  pension  are  still 
under  the  horizon.  I  pity  them  for  the  loss  of  two  or 
three  delightful  hou^s. 

Eleven  o'clock. — Preludes,  scales,  piano-exercises  going 
on  under  my  feet.  In  the  garden  children's  voices.  I 
have  just  finished  Rosenkranz  on  "Hegel's  Logic,"  and 

have  run  through  a  few  articles  in  the  Eeviews 

The  limitation  of  the  French  mind  consists  in  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  its  spiritual  alphabet,  which  does  not  allow  it  to 
translate  the  Greek,  German,  or  Spanish  mind  without 
changing  the  accent.     The  hospitality  of  French  manners 


i 


106  AMTKL'8  JOURNAL, 

is  not  completed  by  a  real  hospitality  of  tliOWghti 
My  nature  is  just  the  opposite.  I  am  individual  in  the 
presence  of  men,  objective  in  the  presence  of  things.  I 
attach  myself  to  the  object,  and  absorb  msyelf  in  it;  I 
detach  myself  from  subjects  \i.e.  persons],  and  hold  myself 
on  my  guard  against  them.  I  feel  myself  different  from 
the  mass  of  men,  and  akin  to  the  great  whole  of  nature. 
My  way  of  asserting  myself  is  in  cherishing  this  sense  of 
sympathetic  unity  with  life,  which  I  yearn  to  understand, 
and  in  repudiating  the  tyranny  of  commonplace.  All  that 
is  imitative  and  artificial  inspires  me  with  a  secret  repul- 
sion, while  the  smallest  true  and  spontaneous  existence 
(plant,  animal,  child)  draws  and  attracts  me.  I  feel 
myself  in  community  of  spirit  with  the  Goethes,  the 
Hegels,  the  Schleiermachers,  the  Leibnitzes,  opposed  as 
they  are  among  themselves;  while  the  French  mathema- 
ticians, philosophers,  or  rhetoricians,  in  spite  of  their  high 
qualities,  leave  me  cold,  because  there  is  in  them  no  sense 
of  the  whole,  the  sum  of  things* — because  they  have  no 

•The  following  passage  from  Sainte-Beuve  may  be  taken  asakind 
of  answer  by  anticipation  to  this  accusation,  which  Amiel  btings. 
more  than  once  in  the  course  of  the  Journal : 

"  Touts  nation  livree  k  elle-meme  et  a  son  propre  g^nie  se  fait  une 
critique  litteraire  qui  y  est  conforme.  La  France  en  son  beau  temps. 
a  eu  la  sienne,  qui  ne  ressemble  ni  a  celle  de  I'Allemagne  ni  a  celle 
de  ses  autres  voisins — un  peu  plus  superficielle,  dira-t-oii — je  ne  le 
crois  pas  :  mais  plus  vive,  moinschargee  d'erudition,  mtMns  th«orique 
et  systematique,  plus  confiante  au  sentiment  immediat  dm  gout.  Un 
peu  de  cliaque  chose  et  rien  de  I'ensetnble,  d  la  Franfai»e :  telle  etait  la 
devise  de  Montaigne  et  telle  est  aussi  la  devise  de  la  critique 
frauQaise.  Nous  ne  sommes  pas  synthetiques,  comme  diraient  les 
Allemands;  le  mot  meme  n'est  pas  frangaise.  L'imagination  de 
detail  nous  suffit.  Montaigne,  La  Fontaine  Madame  de  Sevigne, 
sont  volontiers  nos  livres  de  chevet." 

The  French  critic  then  goes  on  to  give  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  au- 
thors and  the  books,  "qui  ont  peu  a  peu  forme  comme  notre 
rhetorique."  French  criticism  of  the  old  characteristic  kind  rests 
ultimately  upon  the  minute  and  delicate  knowledge  of  a  few  Greek 
and  Latin  classics.  Arnauld,  Boileau,  Fenelcn,  Rollio,  Racine  fils, 
Voltaire,  La  Harpe,  Marmontel,  Delille,  Fontaneg,  and  Chateaubriandi 


AMIKL' 8  JOURNAL.  107 

grasp  of  reality  in  its  fullness,  and  therefore  either  cramp 
and  limit  me  or  awaken  my  distrust.  The  French  lack 
that  intuitive  faculty  to  which  the  living  unity  of  things 
is  revealed,  they  have  very  little  sense  of  what  is  sacred, 
very  little  penetration  into  the  mysteries  of  being.  What 
they  excel  in  is  the  construction  of  special  sciences;  the 
art  of  writing  a  book,  style,  courtesy,  grace,  literary 
models,  perfection  and  urbanity;  the  spirit  of  order,  the 
art  of  teaching,  discipline,  elegance,  truth  of  detail,  power 
of  arrangement;  the  desire  and  the  gift  for  proselytism, 
the  vigor  necessary  for  practical  conclusions.  But  if  you 
wish  to  travel  in  the  "  Inferno"  or  the  "  Paradise"  you  must 
take  other  guides.  Their  home  is  on  the  earth,  in  the 
region  of  the  finite,  the  changing,  the  historical,  and  the 
diverse.  Their  logic  never  goes  beyond  the  category  of 
mechanism  nor  their  metaphysic  beyond  dualism.  When 
they  undertake  anything  else  they  are  doing  violence  to 
themselves. 

April  24th .  ( Nooji) .  — All  around  me  profound  peace,  the 
silence  of  the  mountains  in  spite  of  a  full  house  and  a 
neighboring  village.     No  sound  is  to  be  heard  but  the 

in  one  aspect,  are  the  typical  names  of  this  tradition,  the  creators  and 
uiaintainers  of  this  common  Wiex&ry  fonds,  this  "sorte  de  circulation 
courante  a  I'usage  des  gens  instruits.  J'avoue  ma  faiblesse  :  nous 
sommes  devenus  bien  plus  forts  dans  la  dissertation  erudite,  mais 
j'aurais  un  eternel  regret  pour  cette  moyenne  et  plus  libre  habitude 
litteraire  qui  laissait  a  I'imagination  tout  son  espace  et  a  I'esprit  tout 
son  jeu;  qui  formait  une  atmosphere  saine  et  facile  ou  le  talent 
respirait  et  se  mouvait  a  son  gre:  cette  atmosphere-la,  je  ne  la  trouvo 
plus,  et  je  la  regrette." — [Chateaubriand  et  son  Oroupe  Litteraire, 
vol.  i.  p.  311.) 

The  following  pensee  of  La  Bruyere  applies  to  the  second  half  of 
Amiel's  criticism  of  the  French  mind:  "  If  you  wish  to  travel  in  the 
Inferno  or  the  Paradiso  you  must  take  other  guides,"  etc. 

"  Un  horame  ne  Chretien  et  Fran<;ois  se  trouve  contraint  dans  la 
satyre;  les  grands  sujets  lui  sont  defendus,  il  les  entame  quelquefois, 
et  se  detourne  ensuite  sur  de  petites  choses  qu'il  releve  par  la  beaute 
de  son  genie  et  de  son  style." — Lea  Caracteres,  etc.,  "  Des  OuvrageS' 
de  I'JEsjjrit." 


108  ^  Ml  BUS  JO  URNAL. 

murmur  of  the  flies.  There  is  something  very  striking  m 
this  calm.  The  middle  of  the  day  is  like  the  middle  of 
the  night.  Life  seems  suspended  just  when  it  is  most  in- 
tense. These  are  the  moments  in  which  one  hears  the 
infinite  and  perceives  the  ineffable.  Victor  Hugo,  in  his 
"Contemplations,"  has  been  carrying  me  from  world  to 
world,  and  since  then  his  contradictions  have  reminded  me 
of  the  convinced  Christian  with  whom  I  was  talking  yes- 
terday in  a  house  near  by.  .  .  The  same  sunlight  fioodb 
both  the  book  and  nature,  the  doubting  poet  and  the  be- 
lieving preacher,  as  well  as  the  mobile  dreamer,  who,  in 
the  midst  of  all  these  various  existences,  allows  himself  to 
be  swayed  by  every  passing  breath,  and  delights,  stretched 
along  the  car  of  his  balloon,  in  floating  aimlessly  through 
all  the  sounds  and  shallows  of  the  ether,  and  in  realizing 
within  himself  all  the  harmonies  and  dissonances  of  tlie 
soul,  of  feeling,  and  of  thought.  Idleness  and  contempla- 
tion! Slumber  of  the  will,  lapses  of  the  vital  force,  indo- 
lence of  the  whole  being — how  well  I  know  you !  To  love, 
to  dream,  to  feel,  to  learn,  to  understand — all  these  ar<? 
possible  to  me  if  only  I  may  be  relieved  from  willing.  7.t 
is  my  tendency,  my  instinct,  my  fault,  my  sin.  I  have  a 
sort  of  primitive  horror  of  ambition,  of  struggle,  of  hatred, 
of  all  which  dissipates  the  soul  and  makes  it  dependeiit 
upon  external  things  and  aims.  The  joy  of  becoming  once 
more  conscious  of  myself,  of  listening  to  the  passage  of 
time  and  the  flow  of  the  universal  life,  is  sometimes  enough 
to  make  me  forget  every  desire,  and  to  quench  in  me  both 
the  wish  to  produce  and  the  power  to  execute.  IntrUec- 
tual  Epicureanism  is  always  threatening  to  overpowei  me. 
I  can  only  combat  it  by  the  idea  of  duty;  it  is  as  the  poet 
ha&  said : 

"  Ceax  qui  vivent,  ce  sont  ceux  qui  Ijttent;  ce  sont 
Ceux  dont  un  dessein  ferine  euiplit  I'ame  etle  front, 
Ceux  qui  d'un  haut  destin  gravissent  Tapre  cime, 
Ceux  qui  marchent  pensifs,  epris  d'un  but  sublime, 
Ayant  devant  les  yeux  sans  cesse,  nuit  et  jour, 
Ou  quelque  saint  labeur  ou  quelque  grand  amour!  "  ♦ 


*  Victor  Hugo,  "  Les  Cbatiments.' 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  109 

Five  o\locJc. — In  the  afternoon  our  little  society  met  in 
general  talk  upon  the  terrace.  Some  amount  of  familiarity 
and  friendliness  begins  to  show  itself  in  our  relations  to 
each  other.  I  read  over  again  with  emotion  some  passages 
of  "  Jocelyn."  How  admirable  it  is! 

"  II  se  fit  de  sa  vie  une  plus  male  idee: 

Sa  douleur  d'un  seul  trait  ne  I'avait  pas  videe; 
Mais,  adorant  de  Dieu  le  severe  desseiu, 
II  sut  la  porter  pleine  et  pure  dans  son  sein, 
Et  ne  se  hatant  pas  de  la  repandre  toute, 
Sa  resignation  I'epancha  goutte  a  goutte, 
Selon  la  circonstance  et  le  besoin  d'autrui, 
Pour  tout  vivifier  sur  terre  autour  de  lui."  * 

The  true  poetry  is  that  which  raises  you,  as  this  does, 
toward  heaven,  and  fills  you  with  divine  emotion;  which 
sings  of  love  and  death,  of  hope  and  sacrifice,  and  awakens 
the  sense  of  the  infinite.  "Jocelyn"  always  stirs  in  me 
impulses  of  tenderness  which  it  would  be  hateful  to  me  ta 
see  profaned  by  satire.  As  a  tragedy  of  feeling,  it  has  no 
parallel  in  French,  for  purity,  except  "  Paul  et  Virginie," 
and  I  think  that  I  prefer  "Jocelyn."  To  be  just,  one 
ought  to  read  them  side  by  side. 

Six  o^clock. — One  more  day  is  drawing  to  its  close. 
With  the  exception  of  Mont  Blanc,  all  the  mountains  have 
already  lost  their  color.  The  evening  chill  succeeds  the 
heat  of  the  afternoon.  The  sense  of  the  implacable  flight 
of  things,  of  the  resistless  passage  of  the  hours,  seizes  upon 
me  afresh  and  oppresses  me. 

"  Nature  au  front  serein,  comme  vous  oubliezl  '* 

In  vain  we  cry  with  the  poet,  "0  time,  suspend  thy 
flight ! ".  .  .  And  what  days,  after  all,  would  we  keep 
and  hold?  Not  only  the  happy  days,  but  the  lost  days! 
The  first  have  left  at  least  »  memory  behind  them,  the 
othersnothingbutaregret  which  is  almost  a  remorse.    .     . 

Eleven  o^clock. — A  gust  of  wind.  A  few  clouds  in  the 
sky.  The  nightingale  is  silent.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
cricket  and  the  river  are  still  singing. 

*  Epilogue  of  "  Jocelyn." 


110  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

August  9,  1862. — Life,  which  seeks  its  own  contiuu 
ance,  tends  to  repair  itself  without  our  help.  It  mends  its 
spider's  webs  when  they  have  been  torn;  it  re-establishes 
in  us  the  conditions  of  health,  and  itself  heals  the  injuries 
inflicted  upon  it;  it  binds  the  bandage  again  upon  our 
eyes,  brings  back  hope  into  our  hearts,  breathes  health 
once  more  into  our  organs,  and  regilds  the  dream  of  our 
imagination.  But  for  this,  experience  would  have  hope- 
lessly withered  and  faded  us  long  before  the  time,  and  the 
.youth  would  be  older  than  the  centenarian.  The  wise 
part  of  us,  then,  is  that  which  is  unconscious  of  itself;  and 
what  is  most  reasonable  in  man  are  those  elements  in  him 
which  do  not  reason.  Instinct,  nature,  a  divine,  an  imper- 
sonal activity,  heal  in  us  the  wounds  made  by  our  own 
follies;  the  invisible  genius  of  our  life  is  never  tired  of 
providing  material  for  the  prodigalities  of  the  self.  The 
essential,  maternal  basis  of  our  conscious  life,  is  therefore 
that  unconscious  life  which  we  perceive  no  more  than  the 
outer  hemisphere  of  the  moon  perceives  the  earth,  while 
all  the  time  indissolubly  and  eternally  bound  to  it.  It 
is  our  dvTixOoov,  to  speak  with  Pythagoras. 

November  7,  1862. — How  malign,  infectious,  and  un- 
wholesome is  the  eternal  smile  of  that  indifferent  criti- 
cism, that  attitude  of  ironical  contemplation,  which  cor- 
rodes and  demolishes  everything,  that  mocking  pitiless 
temper,  which  .holds  itself  aloof  from  every  personal  duty 
and  every  vulnerable  affection,  and  cares  only  to  under- 
stand without  committing  itself  to  action!  Criticism  be- 
come a  habit,  a  fashion,  and  a  system,  means  the  destruc- 
tion of  moral  energy,  of  faith,  and  of  all  spiritual  force. 
One  of  my  tendencies  leads  me  in  this  direction,  but  I 
recoil  before  its  results  when  I  come  across  more  emphatic 
types  of  it  than  myself.  And  at  least  I  cannot  reproach 
myself  with  having  ever  attempted  to  destroy  the  moral 
force  of  others ;  my  reverence  for  life  forbade  it,  and  my 
self -distrust  has  taken  from  me  even  the  temptation  to  it. 

This  kind  of  temper  is  very  dangerous  among  us,  for  it 
flatters  all  the  worst  instincts  of  men — indiscipline,  irrev" 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  Ill 

erence,  selfish  individualism — and  it  ends  in  social  atom- 
ism. Minds  inclined  to  mere  negation  are  only  harmless 
in  great  political  organisms,  which  go  without  them  and  in 
spite  of  them.  The  multiplication  of  them  among  our- 
selves will  bring  about  the  ruin  of  our  little  countries,  for 
small  states  only  live  by  faith  and  will.  Woe  to  the  society 
where  negation  rules,  for  life  is  an  affirmation;  and  a 
society,  a  country,  a  nation,  is  a  living  whole  capable  of 
death.  No  nationality  is  possible  without  prejudices,  for 
public  spirit  and  national  tradition  are  but  webs  woven  out 
of  innumerable  beliefs  which  have  been  acquired,  admitted, 
and  continued  without  formal  proof  and  without  discus- 
sion. To  act,  we  must  believe ;  to  believe,  we  must  make 
up  our  minds,  affirm,  decide,  and  in  reality  prejudge  the 
question.  He  who  will  only  act  upon  a  full  scientific  cer- 
titude is  unfit  for  practical  life.  But  we  are  made  for 
action,  and  we  cannot  escape  from  duty.  Let  us  not, 
then,  condemn  prejudice  so  long  as  we  have  nothing  but 
doubt  to  put  in  its  place,  or  laugh  at'  thos3  whom  we 
should  be  incapable  of  consoling!  This,  at  least,  is  my 
point  of  view. 


Beyond  the  element  which  is  common  to  all  men  there 
is  an  element  which  separates  them.  This  element  may 
be  religion,  country,  language,  education.  But  all  these 
being  supposed  common,  there  still  remains  something 
which  serves  as  a  line  of  demarcation — namely,  the  ideal. 
To  have  an  ideal  or  to  have  none,  to  have  this  ideal  or  that 
— this  is  what  digs  gulfs  between  men,  even  between  those 
who  live  in  the  same  family  circle,  under  the  same  roof  or 
in  the  same  room.  You  must  love  with  the  same  love, 
think  with  the  same  thought  as  some  one  else,  if  you  are 
to  escape  solitude. 

Mutual  respect  implies  discretion  and  reserve  even  in 
love  itself;  it  means  preserving  as  much  liberty  as  possible 
to  those  whose  life  we  share.  We  must  distrust  our 
instinct  of  intervention,  for  the  desire  to  make  one's  own 
will  prevail  is  often  disguised  under  the  mask  of  solicitude. 


112  A  MIBL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

How  many  times  we  become  hypocrites  simply  by 
remaining  the  same  outwardly  and  toward  others,  when 
we  know  that  inwardly  and  to  ourselves  we  are  different. 
It  is  not  hypocrisy  in  the  strict  sense,  for  we  borrow  no 
other  personality  than  our  own;  still,  it  is  a  kind  of  decep- 
tion. The  deception  humiliates  us,  and  the  humiliation 
2s  a  chastisement  which  the  mask  inflicts  upon  the  face, 
which  our  past  inflicts  upon  our  present.  Such  humilia- 
tion is  good  for  us;  for  it  produces  shame,  and  shame 
gives  birth  to  repentance.  Thus  in  an  upright  soul  good 
springs  out  of  evil,  and  it  falls  only  to  rise  again. 

January  8,  1863. — This  evening  I  read  through  the 
"  Cid  "  and  "  Rodogune. "  My  impression  is  still  a  mixed 
and  confused  one.  There  is  much  disenchantment  in  my 
admiration,  and  a  good  deal  of  reserve  in  my  enthusiasm. 
What  displeases  me  in  this  dramatic  art,  is  the  mechanical 
abstraction  of  the  characters,  and  the  scolding,  shrewish 
tone  of  the  interlocutors.  I  had  a  vague  impression  of 
listening  to  gigantic  marionettes,  perorating  through  a 
trumpet,  with  the  emphasis  of  Spaniards.  There  is  power 
in  it,  but  we  have  before  us  heroic  idols  rather  than  human 
beings.  The  element  of  artificiality,  of  strained  pomposity 
and  affectation,  which  is  the  plague  of  classical  tragedy,  is 
everywhere  apparent,  and  one  hears,  as  it  were,  the  cords 
and  pulleys  of  these  majestic  colossi  creaking  and  groaning. 
I  much  prefer  Racine  and  Shakespeare;  the  one  from  the 
point  of  view  of  aesthetic  sensation,  the  other  from  that  of 
psychological  sensation.  The  southern  theater  can  never 
free  itself  from  masks.  Comic  masks  are  bearable,  but  in 
the  case  of  tragic  heroes,  the  abstract  type,  the  mask, 
make  one  impatient.  I  can  laugh  with  personages  of  tin 
and  pasteboard :  I  can  only  weep  with  the  living,  or  what 
resembles  them.  Abstraction  turns  easily  to  caricature; 
it  is  apt  to  engender  mere  shadows  on  the  wall,  mere 
ghosts  and  puppets.  It  is  psychology  of  the  first  degree — 
elementary  pyschology — just  as  the  colored  pictures  of 
Germany  are  elementary  painting.     And  yet  with  all  this. 


AMIEL'S  JO  URNAL.  1 13 

you  have  a  double-distilled  and  often  sophistical  reJBne- 
ment:  just  as  savages  are  uy  no  means  simple.  The  fine 
side  of  it  all  is  the  manly  vigor,  the  bold  frankness  of 
ideas,  words,  and  sentiments.  Why  is  it  that  we  find  so 
large  an  element  of  factitious  grandeur,  mingled  with  true 
grandeur,  in  this  drama  of  1640,  from  which  the  whole 
dramatic  development  of  monarchical  France  was  to 
spring?  Genius  is  there,  but  it  is  hemmed  round  by  a 
conventional  civilization,  and,  strive  as  he  may,  no  man 
wears  a  wig  with  impunity. 

January  13,  1863. — To-day  it  has  been  the  turn  of 
"Polyeucte"  and  "La  Morte  de  Pompee."  Whatever 
one's  objections  may  be,  there  is  something  grandiose  in 
the  style  of  Corneille  which  reconciles  you  at  last  even  to 
his  stiff,  emphatic  manner,  and  his  over-ingenious  rhetoric. 
But  it  is  the  dramatic  genre  which  is  false.  His  heroes 
are  roles  rather  than  men.  They  pose  as  magnanimity, 
virtue,  glory,  instead  of  realizing  them  before  us.  They 
are  always  en  scene,  studied  by  others,  or  by  themselves. 
With  them  glory — that  is  to  say,  the  life  of  ceremony  and 
of  affairs,  and  the  opinion  of  the  public — replaces  nature 
— becomes  nature.  They  never  speak  except  ore  rotutidOy 
in  cothurnus,  or  sometimes  on  stilts.  And  what  con- 
summate advocates  they  all  are !  The  French  drama  is  an 
oratorical  tournament,  a  long  suit  between  opposing 
parties,  on  a  day  which  is  to  end  with  the  death  of  some- 
body, and  where  all  the  personages  represented  are  in  haste 
to  speak  before  the  hour  of  silence  strikes.  Elsewhere, 
speech  serves  to  make  action  intelligible;  in  French 
tragedy  action  is  but  a  decent  motive  for  speech.  It  is  the 
procedure  calculated  to  extract  the  finest  possible  speeches 
from  the  persons  who  are  engaged  in  the  action,  and  who 
represent  different  perceptions  of  it  at  different  moments 
and  from  different  points  of  view.  Love  and  nature,  duty 
and  desire,  and  a  dozen  other  moral  antitheses,  are  the 
limbs  moved  by  the  wire  of  the  dramatist,  who  makes 
them  fall  into  all  the  tragic  attitudes.  What  is  really 
curious  and  amusing  is  that  the  people  of  all  others  the 


114  AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL. 

most  vivacious,  gay,  and  intelligent,  should  have  always 
understood  the  grand  style  in  this  pompous,  pedantic 
fashion.      But  it  was  inevitable. 

April  8,  1863. — I  have  been  turning  over  the  3,500 
pages  of  "  Les  Miserables,"  trying  to  understand  the  guid- 
ing idea  of  this  vast  composition.  The  fundamental  idea 
of  "  Les  Miserables  "  seems  to  be  this.  Society  engenders 
certain  frightful  evils — prostitution,  vagabondage,  rogues, 
thieves,  convicts,  war,  revolutionary  clubs  and  barricades. 
She  ought  to  impress  this  fact  on  her  mind,  and  not  treat 
all  those  who  come  in  contact  with  her  law  as  mere  mon- 
sters. The  task  before  us  is  to  humanize  law  and  opinion, 
to  raise  the  fallen  as  well  as  the  vanquished,  to  create  a 
social  redemption.  How  is  this  to  be  done?  By  enlight- 
ening vice  and  lawlessness,  and  so  diminishing  the  sum  of 
them,  and  by  bringing  to  bear  upon  the  guilty  the  healing 
influence  of  pardon.  At  bottom  is  it  not  a  Christianiza- 
tion  of  society,  this  extension  of  charity  from  the  sinner  to 
the  condemned  criminal,  this  application  to  our  present 
life  of  what  the  church  applies  more  readily  to  the  other? 
Struggle  to  restore  a  human  soul  to  order  and  to  righteous- 
ness by  patience  and  by  love,  instead  of  crushing  it  by 
your  inflexible  vindictiveness,  your  savage  justice!  Such 
is  the  cry  of  the  book.  It  is  great  and  noble,  but  it  is  a 
little  optimistic  and  Rousseau-like.  According  to  it  the 
individual  is  always  innocent  and  society  always  respon- 
sible, and  the  ideal  before  us  for  the  twentieth  century  is  a 
sort  of  democratic  age  of  gold,  a  universal  republic  from 
which  war,  capital  punishment,  and  pauperism  will  have 
disappeared.  It  is  the  religion  and  the  city  of  progress ; 
in  a  word,  the  Utopia  of  the  eighteenth  century  revived  on 
a  great  scale.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  generosity  in  it, 
mixed  with  not  a  little  fanciful  extravagance.  The  fan- 
cifulness  consists  chiefly  in  a  superficial  notion  of  evil. 
The  autlror  ignores  or  pretends  to  forget  the  instinct  of 
perversity,  the  love  of  evil  for  evil's  sake,  which  is  con- 
tained in  the  human  heart. 

The  great  and  salutary  idea  of  the  book,  is  that  honesty 


A  MI  EL'S  JO  URNAL.  1 1 5 

before  the  law  is  a  cruel  hypocrisy,  in  so  far  as  it  arrogates 
to  itself  the  right  of  dividing  society  according  to  its  own 
standard  into  elect  and  reprobates,  and  thus  confounds  the 
relative  with  the  absolute.  The  leading  passage  is  that  in 
which  Javert,  thrown  off  the  rails,  upsets  the  whole  moral 
system  of  the  strict  Javort,  half  spy,  half  priest — of  the 
irreproacliable  police-officer.  In  this  chapter  the  writer 
shows  us  social  charity  illuminating  and  transforming  a 
harsh  and  unrighteous  justice.  Suppression  of  the  social 
hell, that  is  to  say,  of  all  irreparable  stains,  of  all  social , 
outlawries  for  which  there  is  neither  end  nor  hope — it  is 
an  essentially  religious  idea. 

The  erudition,  the  talent,  the  brilliancy  of  execution, 
shown  in  the  book  are  astonishing,  bewildering  almost.  Its 
faults  are  to  be  found  in  the  enormous  length  allowed  to 
digressions  and  episodical  dissertations,  in  the  exaggera- 
tion of  all  the  combinations  and  all  the  theses,  and,  finally, 
in  something  strained,  spasmodic,  and  violent  in  the  style, 
which  is  very  different  from  the  style  of  natural  eloquence 
or  of  essential  truth.  Effect  is  the  misfortune  of  Victor 
Hugo,  because  he  makes  it  the  center  of  his  aesthetic  sys- 
tem; and  hence  exaggeration,  monotony  of  emphasis, 
theatricality  of  manner,  a  tendency  to  force  and  over-drive. 
A  powerful  artist,  but  one  with  whom  you  never  forget 
the  artist;  and  a  dangerous  model,  for  the  master  himself 
is  already  grazing  the  rock  of  burlesque,  and  passes  from 
the  sublime  to  the  repulsive,  from  lack  of  power  to  produce 
one  harmonious  impression  of  beauty.  It  is  natural 
enough  that  he  should  detest  Racine. 

But  what  astonishing  philological  and  literary  power  IvAt 
Victor  Hugo!  He  is  master  of  all  the  dialects  contained 
m  our  language,  dialects  of  the  courts  of  law,  of  the  stock- 
exchange,  of  war,  and  of  the  sea,  of  philosophy  and  the 
convict-gang,  the  dialects  of  trade  and  of  arcliEeology,  of 
the  antiquarian  and  the  scavenger.  All  the  bric-ji-brac  of 
history  and  of  manners,  so  to  speak,  all  the  curiosities  of 
soil,  and  subsoil,  are  known  and  familiar  to  him.  He 
teems  to  have  turned  his  Paris  over  and  over,  and  to  know 


116  AMIKL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

it  body  and  soul  as  one  knows  the  contents  of  one's  pocket. 
What  a  prodigious  memory  and  what  a  lurid  imagination ! 
He  is  at  once  a  visionary  and  yet  master  of  his  dreamte;  he 
summons  up  and  handles  at  will  the  hallucinations  of 
opium  or  of  hasheesh,  without  ever  becoming  their  dupe; 
he  makes  of  madness  one  of  his  tame  animals,  and  bestrides, 
with  equal  coolness,  Pegasus  or  Nightmare,  the  Hippogritf 
or  the  Chimera.  As  a  psychological  phenomenon  he  is  of 
the  deepest  interest.  Victor  Hugo  draws  in  sulphuric 
acid,  he  lights  his  pictures  with  electric  light.  He  deafens, 
blinds,  and  bewilders  his  reader  rather  than  he  charms  or 
persuades  him.  Strength  carried  to  such  a  point  as  this  is 
a  fascination;  without  seeming  to  take  you  captive,  it 
makes  you  its  prisoner;  it  does  not  enchant  you,  but  it 
holds  you  spellbound.  His  ideal  is  the  extraordinary ^  the 
gigantic,  the  overwhelming,  the  incommensurable.  His 
most  characteristic  words  are  immense,  colossal,  enormous, 
huge,  monstrous.  He  finds  a  way  of  making  even  child- 
nature  extravagant  and  bizarre.  The  only  thing  which 
seems  impossible  to  him  is  to  be  natural.  In  short,  his 
passion  is  grandeur,  his  fault  is  excess;  his  distinguishing 
mark  is  a  kind  of  Titanic  power  with  strange  dissonances 
of  puerility  in  its  magnificence.  Where  he  is  weakest  is, 
in  measure,  taste,  and  sense  of  humor:  he  fails  in  esprit, 
in  the  subtlest  sense  of  the  word.  Victor  Hugo  is  a  galli- 
cized  Spaniard,  or  rather  he  unites  all  the  extremes  of 
south  and  north,  the  Scandinavian  and  the  African.  Gaul 
has  less  part  in  him  than  any  other  country.  And  yet,  by 
a  caprice  of  destiny,  he  is  one  of  the  literary  geniuses  of 
France  in  the  nineteenth  century !  His  resources  are  inex- 
haustible, and  age  seems  to  have  no  power  over  him. 
What  an  infinite  store  of  words,  forms,  and  ideas  he  carries 
about  with  him,  and  what  a  pile  of  works  he  has  left  be- 
hind him  to  mark  his  passage !  His  eruptions  are  like 
those  of  a  volcano;  and,  fabulous  workman  that  he  is,  he 
goes  on  forever  raising,  destroying,  crushing,  and  rebuild 
ing  a  world  of  his  own  creation,  and  a  world  rather  Hinder 
than  Hellenic. 


AMIEL'S  JO  URNAL.  117 

He  amazes  me :  and  yet  I  prefer  those  men  of  genius 
who  awaken  in  me  the  sense  of  truth,  and  who  increase 
the  sum  of  one's  inner  liberty.  In  Hugo  one  feels  the 
effort  of  the  laboring  Cyclops ;  give  me  rather  the  sonorous 
bow  of  Apollo,  and  the  tranquil  brow  of  the  Olympian 
Jove.  His  type  is  that  of  the  Satyr  in  the  "  Legende  des 
Siecles,"  who  crushes  Olympus,  a  type  midway  between 
the  ugliness  of  the  faun  and  the  overpowering  sublimity 
of  the  great  Pan. 

May  23,  1863. — Dull,  cloudy,  misty  weather;  it  rained 
in  the  night  and  yet  the  air  is  heavy.  This  somber  reverie 
of  earth  and  sky  has  a  sacredness  of  its  own,  but  it  fills 
the  spectator  with  a  vague  and  stupefying  ennui.  Light 
brings  life:  darkness  may  bring  thought,  but  a  dnll  day- 
light, the  uncertain  glimmer  of  a  leaden  sky,  merely  make 
one  restless  and  weary.  These  indecisive  and  chaotic  states 
of  nature  are  ugly,  like  all  amorphous  things,  like  smeared 
colors,  or  bats,  or  the  viscous  polyps  of  the  sea.  The 
source  of  all  attractiveness  is  to  be  found  in  character,  in 
sharpness  of  outline,  in  individualization.  All  that  is  con- 
fused and  indistinct,  without  form,  or  sex,  or  accent,  is 
antagonistic  to  beauty ;  for  the  mind's  first  need  is  light; 
light  means  order,  and  order  means,  in  the  first  place,  the 
distinction  of  the  parts,  in  the  second,  their  regular  ac- 
tion.    Beauty  is  based  on  reason. 

August  7,  1863. — A  walk  after  supper,  a  sky  sparkling 
with  stars,  the  Milky  Way  magnificent.  Alas !  all  the  same 
my  heart  is  heavy.  At  bottom  I  am  always  brought  up 
against  an  incurable  distrust  of  myself  and  of  life,  which 
toward  my  neighbor  has  become  indulgence,  but  for  my- 
self has  led  to  a  regime  of  absolute  abstention.  All  or 
nothing!  This  is  my  inborn  disposition,  my  primitive 
stuff,  my  "old  man."  And  yet  if  some  one  will  but  give 
me  a  little  love,  will  but  penetrate  a  little  into  my  inner 
feeling,  I  am  happy  and  ask  for  scarcely  anything  else.  A 
child's  caresses,  a  friend's  talk,  are  enough  to  make  me 
gay  and  expansive.  So  then  I  aspire  to  the  infinite,  and 
yet  a  very  little  contents  me;  everything  disturbs  me  and 


118  AMIEVS  JOURNAL. 

the  least  thing  calms  me.  I  have  often  surprised  in  my 
self  the  wish  for  death,  and  yet  my  ambitions  for  happi- 
ness scarcely  go  beyond  those  of  the  bird :  wings !  sun !  a 
nest!  I  persist  in  solitude  because  of  a  taste  for  it,  so 
people  think.  No,  it  is  from  distaste,  disgust,  from  shame 
at  my  own  need  of  others,  shame  at  confessing  it,  a  fear  of 
passing  into  bondage  if  I  do  confess  it. 

September  2,  18G3. — How  shall  I  find  a  name  for  that 
subtle  feeling  which  seized  hold  upon  me  this  morning  in  the 
twilight  of  waking?  It  was  a  reminiscence,  charming 
indeed,  but  nameless,  vague,  and  featureless,  like  the 
figure  of  a  woman  seen  for  an  instant  by  a  sick  man  in  the 
uncertainty  of  delirium,  and  across  the  shadows  of  his 
darkened  room.  I  had  a  distinct  sense  of  a  form  which  I 
had  seen  somewhere,  and  which  had  moved  and  charmed 
me  once,  and  then  had  fallen  back  with  time  into  the 
•catacombs  of  oblivion.  But  all  the  rest  was  confused: 
place,  occasion,  and  the  figure  itself,  for  I  saw  neither  the 
face  nor  its  expression.  The  whole  was  like  a  fluttering 
veil  under  which  the  enigma — the  secret,  of  happiness — 
might  have  been  hidden.  And  I  was  awake  enough  to  be 
sure  that  it  was  not  a  dream. 

In  impressions  like  these  we  recognize  the  last  trace  of 
things  vjliich  are  sinking  out  of  sight  and  call  within  us,  of 
memories  which  are  perishing.  It  is  like  a  shimmering 
marsh-light  falling  upon  some  vague  outline  of  which  one 
scarcely  knows  whether  it  represents  a  pain  or  a  pleasure — 
a  gleam  upon  a  grave.  How  strange !  One  might  al- 
most call  such  things  the  ghosts  of  the  soul,  reflections  of 
past  happiness,  the  wanes  of  our  dead  emotions.  If,  as 
the  Talmud,  I  think,  says,  every  feeling  of  love  gives 
birth  involuntarily  to  an  invisible  genius  or  spirit  which 
yearns  to  complete  its  existence,  and  these  glimmering 
phantoms,  which  have  never  taken  to  themselves  form  and 
reality,  are  still  wandering  in  the  limbo  of  the  soul,  what 
is  there  to  astonish  us  in  the  strange  apparitions  which 
sometimes  come  to  visit  our  pillow?  At  any  rate,  the  fact 
remains  that  I  was  not  able  to  force  the  phantom  to  tell  me  its 


AMIEVS  JOURNAL.  lift 

name,  nor  to  give  any  shape  or  distinctness  to  my  remi- 
niscence. 

What  a  melancholy  aspect  life  may  wear  to  us  when  we 
are  floating  down  the  current  of  such  dreamy  thoughts  as- 
these!  It  seems  like  some  vast  nocturnal  shipwreck  in 
which  a  hundred  loving  voices  are  clamoring  for  help, 
while  the  pitiless  mounting  wave  is  silencing  all  the  cries 
one  by  one,  before  we  have  been  able,  in  this  darkness  of 
death,  to  press  a  hand  or  give  the  farewell  kiss.  From 
such  a  point  of  view  destiny  looks  harsh,  savage,  and 
cruel,  and  the  tragedy  of  life  rises  like  a  rock  in  the  midst 
of  the  dull  waters  of  daily  triviality.  It  is  impossible  not 
to  be  serious  under  the  weight  of  indefinable  anxiety  pro- 
duced in  us  by  such  a  spectacle.  The  surface  of  things 
may  be  smiling  or  commonplace,  but  the  depths  below  are 
austere  and  terrible.  As  soon  as  we  touch  upon  eternal 
things,  upon  the  destiny  of  the  soul,  upon  truth  or  duty, 
upon  the  secrets  of  life  and  death,  we  become  grave 
whether  we  will  or  no. 

Love  at  its  highest  point — love  sublime,  unique,^  invin- 
cible— leads  us  straight  to  the  brink  of  the  great  abyss,  for 
it  speaks  to  us  directly  of  the  infinite  and  of  eternity.  It 
is  eminently  religious;  it  may  even  become  religion. 
When  all  around  a  man  is  wavering  and  changing,  when 
everything  is  growing  dark  and  featureless  to  him  in  th& 
far  distance  of  an  unknown  future,  when  the  world  seems 
but  a  fiction  or  a  fairy  tale,  and  the  universe  a  chimera, 
when  the  whole  edifice  of  ideas  vanishes  in  smoke,  and  all 
realities  are  penetrated  Avith  doubt,  what  is  the  fixed  point 
which  may  still  be  his?  The  faithful  heart  of  a  woman  f 
There  he  may  rest  his  head;  there  he  will  find  strength 
to  live,  strength  to  believe,  and,  if  need  be,  strength  to 
die  in  peace  with  a  benediction  on  his  lips.  Who  knows 
if  love  and  its  beatitude,  clear  manifestation  as  it  is  of  the 
universal  harmony  of  things,  is  not  the'  best  demonstra- 
tion of  a  fatherly  and  understanding  God,  just  as  it  is  the- 
Bhortest  road  by  which  to  reach  him?  Love  is  a  faith,  and 
one  faith  leads  to  another.     And  this  faith  is  happiness^ 


120  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

light  and  force.  Only  by  it  does  a  man  enter  into  the 
series  of  the  living,  the  awakened,  the  happy,  the  redeemed 
— of  those  true  men  who  know  the  value  of  existence  and 
who  labor  for  the  glory  of  God  and  of  the  truth.  Till 
then  we  are  but  babblers  and  chatterers,  spendthrifts  of 
our  time,  our  faculties  and  our  gifts,  without  aim,  without 
real  joy — weak,  infirm,  and  useless  beings,  of  no  account 
in  the  scheme  of  things.  Perhaps  it  is  through  love  that 
I  shall  find  my  way  back  to  faith,  to  religion,  to  energy,  to 
concentration.  It  seems  to  me,  at  least,  that  if  I  could 
but  find  my  work-fellow  and  my  destined  companion,  all 
the  rest  would  be  added  unto  me,  as  though  to  confound 
my  unbelief  and  make  me  blush  for  my  despair.  Believe, 
then,  in  a  fatherly  Providence,  and  dare  to  love! 

November  25,  1863. — Prayer  is  the  essential  weapon  of 
all  religions.  He  who  can  no  longer  pray  because  he 
doubts  whether  there  is  a  being  to  whom  prayer  ascends 
and  from  whom  blessing  descends,  he  indeed  is  cruelly 
solitary  and  prodigiously  impoverished.  And  you,  what 
do  you  believe  about  it?  At  this  moment  I  should  find  it 
very  difficult  to  say.  All  my  positive  beliefs  are  in  the 
crucible  ready  for  any  kind  of  metamorphosis.  Truth 
above  all,  even  when  it  upsets  and  overwhelms  us!  But 
what  I  believe  is  that  the  highest  idea  we  can  conceive  of 
the  principle  of  things  will  be  the  truest,  and  that  the 
truest  truth  is  that  which  makes  man  the  most  wholly 
good,  wisest,  greatest,  and  happiest. 

My  creed  is  in  transition.  Yet  I  still  believe  in  God, 
and  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  I  believe  in  holiness, 
truth,  beauty;  I  believe  in  the  redemption  of  the  soul  by 
faitl  in  forgiveness.  I  believe  in  love,  devotion,  honor. 
I  believe  in  duty  and  the  moral  conscience.  I  believe 
even  in  prayer.  I  believe  in  the  fundamental  intuitions 
of  the  human  race,  and  in  the  great  affirmations  of  the 
inspired  of  all  ages.  I  believe  that  our  higher  nature  is 
onr  truer  nature. 

Can  one  get  a  theology  and  a  theodicy  out  of  this? 
Probably,  but  just  now  I  do  not  see  it  distinctly.     It  is  so 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.  121 

long  since  I  have  ceased  to  think  abont  my  own  meta- 
physic,  and  since  I  have  lived  in  the  thoughts  of  others, 
that  I  am  ready  even  to  ask  myself  whether  the  crystalliza- 
tion of  my  beliefs  is  necessary.  Yes,  for  preaching  and 
acting;  less  for  studying,  contemplating  and  learning. 

December  4,  1863. — The  whole  secret  of  remaining 
young  in  spite  of  years,  and  even  of  gray  hairs,  is  to  cher- 
ish enthusiasm  in  one's  self  by  poetry,  by  contemplation, 
by  charity — that  is,  in  fewer  words,  by  the  maintenance 
of  harmony  in  the  soul.  When  everything  is  in  its  right 
place  within  us,  we  ourselves  are  in  equilibrium  with  the 
whole  work  of  God.  Deep  and  grave  enthusiasm  for  the 
eternal  beauty  and  the  eternal  order,  reason  touched  with 
emotion  and  a  serene  tenderness  of  heart — these  surely  are 
the  foundations  of  wisdom. 

Wisdom !  how  inexhaustible  a  theme !  A  sort  of  peace- 
ful aureole  surrounds  and  illumines  this  thought,  in  which 
are  summed  up  all  the  treasures  of  moral  experience,  and 
which  is  the  ripest  fruit  of  a  well-spent  life.  Wisdom 
never  grows  old,  for  she  is  the  expression  of  order  itself — 
that  is,  of  the  Eternal.  Only  the  wise  man  draws  from 
life,  and  from  every  stage  of  it,  its  true  savor,  because 
only  he  feels  the  beauty,  the  dignity,  and  the  value  of  life. 
The  flowers  of  youth  may  fade,  but  the  summer,  the 
autumn,  and  even  the  winter  of  human  existence,  have 
their  majestic  grandeur,  which  the  wise  man  recognizes 
and  glorifies.  To  see  all  things  in  God ;  to  make  of  one's 
own  life  a  journey  toward  the  ideal ;  to  live  with  gratitude, 
with  devoutness,  with  gentleness  and  courage;  this  was 
the  splendid  aim  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  And  if  you  add  to 
it  the  humility  which  kneels,  and  the  charity  which  gives, 
you  have  the  whole  wisdom  of  the  children  of  God,  the 
immortal  joy  which  is  the  heritage  of  the  true  Christian. 
But  what  a  false  Christianity  is  that  which  slanders  wis- 
dom and  seeks  to  do  without  it!  In  such  a  case  I  am  on 
the  side  of  wisdom,  which  is,  as  it  were,  justice  done  to 
God,  even  in  this  life.  The  relegation  of  life  to  some 
distant  future,  and  the  separation  of  the  holy  man  from 


122  ARIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

the  virtnous  man,  are  the  signs  of  a  false  religious  concep* 
tion.  This  error  is,  in  some  degree,  that  of  the  whole 
Middle  Age,  and  belongs,  perhaps,  to  the  essence  of 
Catholicism.  But  the  true  Christianity  must  purge  itself 
from  so  disastrous  a  mistake.  The  eternal  life  is  not  the 
future  life;  it  is  life  in  harmony  with  the  true  order  of 
things — life  in  God.  We  must  learn  to  look  upon  time  as 
a  movement  of  eternity,  as  an  undulation  in  the  ocean  of 
being.  To  live,  so  as  to  keep  this  consciousness  of  ours  in 
perpetual  relation  with  the  eternal,  is  to  be  wise;  to  live, 
so  as  to  personify  and  embody  the  eternal,  is  to  be 
religious. 


The  modern  leveler,  after  having  done  away  with  con- 
ventional inequalities,  with  arbitrary  privilege  and  histori- 
cal injustice,  goes  still  farther,  and  rebels  against  the 
inequalities  of  merit,  capacity,  and  virtue.  Beginning 
with  a  just  principle,  he  develops  it  into  an  unjust  one. 
Inequality  may  be  as  true  and  as  just  as  equality:  it 
depends  upon  what  you  mean  by  it.  But  this  is  precisely 
what  nobody  cares  to  find  out.  All  passions  dread  the 
light,  and  the  modern  zeal  for  equality  is  a  disguised  hatred 
which  tries  to  pass  itself  off  as  love. 


Liberty,  equality — bad  principles!  The  only  true  prin- 
ciple for  humanity  is  justice,  and  justice  toward  the  feeble 
becomes  necessarily  protection  or  kindness. 

April  2,  1864. — To-day  April  has  been  displaying  her 
showery  caprices.  We  have  had  floods  of  sunshine  fol- 
lowed by  deluges  of  rain,  alternate  tears  and  smiles  from 
the  petulant  sky,  gusts  of  wind  and  storms.  The  weather 
is  like  a  spoiled  child  whose  wishes  and  expression  change 
twenty  times  in  an  hour.  It  is  a  blessing  for  the  plants, 
and  means  an  influx  of  life  through  all  the  veins  of  the 
spring.  The  circle  of  mountains  which  bounds  the  valley 
is  covered  with  white  from  top  to  toe,  but  two  hours  of 
^nnshine  would  melt  the  snow  away.     The  snow  itself  is 


AMIKVS  JOURNAL.  123 

but  a  new  caprice,  a  simple  stage  decoration  ready  to  dis- 
appear at  the  signal,  of  the  scene-shifter. 

How  sensible  I  am  to  the  restless  change  which  rules  the 
world.  To  appear,  and  to  vanish — there  is  the  biography 
of  all  individuals,  whatever  may  be  the  length  of  the 
cycle  of  existence  which  they  describe,  and  the  drama  of 
the  universe  is  nothing  more.  All  life  is  the  shadow  of  a 
smoke-wreath,  a  gesture  in  the  empty  air,  a  hieroglyph 
traced  for  an  instant  in  the  sand,  and  effaced  a  moment 
afterward  by  a  breath  of  wind,  an  air-bubble  expanding 
and  vanishing  on  the  surface  of  the  great  river  of  being — 
an  appearance,  a  vanity,  a  nothing.  But  this  nothing  is, 
however,  the  symbol  of  the  universal  being,  and  this  pass- 
ing bubble  is  the  epitome  of  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  man  who  has,  however  imperceptibly,  helped  in 
the  work  of  the  universe,  has  lived;  the  man  who  has 
been  conscious,  in  however  small  a  degree,  of  the  cosmical 
movement,  has  lived  also.  The  plain  man  serves  the 
world  by  his  action  and  as  a  wheel  in  the  machine;  the 
thinker  serves  it  by  his  intellect,  and  as  a  light  upon  its 
path.  The  man  of  meditative  soul,  who  raises  and  com- 
forts and  sustains  his  traveling  companions,  mortal  and 
fugitive  like  himself,  plays  a  nobler  part  still,  for  he 
unites  the  other  two  utilities.  Action,  thought,  speech, 
are  the  three  modes  of  human  life.  The  artisan,  the  sa- 
vant, and  the  orator,  are  all  three  God's  workmen.  To 
do,  to  discover,  to  teach — these  three  things  are  all  labor, 
all  good,  all  necessary.  Will-o'-the-wisps  that  we  are,  we 
may  yet  leave  a  trace  behind  us;  meteors  that  we  are,  we 
may  yet  prolong  our  perishable  being  in  the  memory  of 
men,  or  at  least  in  the  contexture  of  after  events.  Every- 
thing disappears,  but  nothing  is  lost,  and  the  civilization 
or  city  of  man  is  but  an  immense  spiritual  pyramid,  built 
up  out  of  the  work  of  all  that  has  ever  lived  under  the 
forms  of  moral  being,  just  as  our  calcareous  mountains 
are  made  of  the  debris  of  myriads  of  nameless  creatures 
who  have  lived  under  the  forms  of  microscopic  animal  life. 

April  5,  1864. — I  have  been  reading  "Prince  Vitale" 


134  AMIEU 8  JOURNAL. 

for  the  second  time,  and  have  been  lost  in  admiration  of 
it.  What  wealth  of  color,  facts,  ideas — what  learning, 
what  fine-edged  satire,  what  esprit,  science,  and  talent, 
and  what  an  irreproachable  finish  of  style — so  limpid,  and 
yet  so  profound !  It  is  not  heartfelt  and  it  is  not  spontane- 
ous, but  all  other  kinds  of  merit,  culture,  and  cleverness 
the  author  possesses.  It  would  be  impossible  to  be  more 
penetrating,  more  subtle,  and  less  fettered  in  mind,  than 
this  wizard  of  language,  with  his  irony  and  his  chameleon- 
like variety.  Victor  Cherbuliez,  like  the  sphinx,  is  able 
to  play  all  lyres,  and  takes  his  profit  from  them  all,  with  a 
Goethe-like  serenity.  It  seems  as  if  passion,  grief,  and 
error  had  no  hold  on  this  impassive  soul.  The  key  of 
his  thought  is  to  be  looked  for  in  Hegel's  "  Phenomenology 
of    Mind,"    remolded  by  Greek   and   French   influences. 

His  faith,  if  he  has  one,  is  that  of  Strauss — Humanism. 
But  he  is  perfectly  master  of  himself  and  of  his  utter- 
ances, and  will  take  good  care  never  to  preach  anything 
prematurely. 

What  is  there  quite  at  the  bottom  of  this  deep  spring? 

In  any  case  a  mind  as  free  as  any  can  possibly  be  from 
stupidity  and  prejudice.  One  might  almost  say  that 
Cherbuliez  knows  all  that  he  wishes  to  know,  without  the 
trouble  of  learning  it.  He  is  a  calm  Mephistopheles, 
with  perfect  manners,  grace,  variety,  and  an  exquisite 
urbanity;  and  Mephisto  is  a  clever  jeweler;  and  this 
jeweler  is  a  subtle  musician ;  and  this  fine  singer  and  story- 
teller, with  his  amber-like  delicacy  and  brilliancy,  is  mak- 
ing mock  of  us  all  the  while.  He  takes  a  malicious 
pleasure  in  withdrawing  his  own  personality  from  scrutiny 
and  divination,  while  he  himself  divines  everything,  and 
he  likes  to  make  us  feel  that  although  he  holds  in  his  hand 
the  secret  of  the  universe,  he  will  only  unfold  his  prize  at 
his  own  time,  and  if  it  pleases  him.  Victor  Cherbuliez 
is  a  little  like  Proudhon  and  plays  with  paradoxes,  to 
shock  the  bourgeois.  Thus  he  amuses  himself  with  run- 
ning down  Luther  and  the  Reformation  in  favor  of  the 
Benaissance.     Of  the  troubles  of  conscience  he  seems  to 


AMIEL'8  JO  URNAL.  125 

knovi^  nothing.  His  supreme  tribunal  is  reason.  At  bot- 
tom he  is  Hegelian  and  intellectualist.  But  it  is  a  splendid 
organization.  Only  sometimes  he  must  be  antipathetic  to 
those  men  of  duty  who  make  renunciation,  sacrifice,  and 
humility  the  measure  of  individual  worth. 

July,  1864. — Among  the  Alps  I  become  a  child  again, 
with  all  the  follies  and  naivete  of  childhood.  Shaking  olf 
the  weight  of  years,  the  trappings  of  office,  and  all  the 
tiresome  and  ridiculous  caution  with  which  one  lives,  I 
plunge  into  the  full  tide  of  pleasure,  and  amuse  myself 
sans  faQon,  as  it  comes.  In  this  careless  light-hearted 
mood,  my  ordinary  formulas  and  habits  fall  away  from  me 
so  completely  that  I  feel  myself  no  longer  either  towns- 
man, or  professor,  or  savant,  or  bachelor,  and  I  remember 
no  more  of  my  past  than  if  it  were  a  dream.  It  is  like  a 
bath  in  Lethe. 

It  makes  me  really  believe  that  the  smallest  illness  would 
destroy  my  memory,  and  wipe  out  all  my  previous  exist- 
ence, when  I  see  with  what  ease  I  become  a  stranger  to 
toyself,  and  fall  back  once  more  into  the  condition  of  a 
'ilank  sheet,  a  tabula  rasa.  Life  wears  such  a  dream- 
tspect  to  me  that  I  can  throw  myself  without  any  difficulty 
into  the  situation  of  the  dying,  before  whose  eyes  all  this 
tumult  of  images  and  forms  fades  into  nothingness.  I 
have  the  inconsistency  of  a  fluid,  a  vapor,  a  cloud,  and  all 
is  easily  unmade  or  transformed  in  me;  everything  passes 
and  is  ejlaced  like  the  waves  which  follow  each  other  on 
the  sea.  When  I  say  all,  I  mean  all  that  is  arbitrary,  in- 
different, partial,  or  intellectual  in  the  combinations  of 
one's  life.  For  I  feel  that  the  things  of  the  soul,  our  im- 
mortal aspirations,  our  deepest  affections,  are  not  drawn 
into  this  chaotic  whirlwind  of  impressions.  It  is  the  finite 
things  which  are  mortal  and  fugitive.  Every  man  feels  it 
on  his  deathbed.  I  feel  it  during  the  whole  of  life;  that 
is  the  only  difference  between  me  and  others.  Excepting 
only  love,  thought,  and  liberty,  almost  everything  is  now 
a  matter  of  indifference  to  me,  and  those  objects  which 
excite  the  desires  of  most  men,  rouse  in  me  little  more 


J  26  A  MIEL'8  JO  URN  A  L. 

than  curiosity.  What  does  it  mean — detachment  of  soul, 
disinterestedness,  weakness,  or  wisdom? 

September  19,  1864. — I  have  been  living  for  two  hours 
with  a  noble  soul — with  Eugenie  de  Guerin,  the  pious  hero- 
ine of  fraternal  love.  How  many  thoughts,  feelings,  griefs, 
in  this  journal  of  six  years!  How  it  makes  one  dream, 
think  and  live !  It  produces  a  certain  homesick  impression 
on  me,  a  little  like  that  of  certain  forgotten  melodies 
whereof  the  accent  touches  the  heart,  one  knows  not  why. 
It  is  as  though  far-off  paths  came  back  to  me,  glimpses  of 
youth,  a  confused  murmur  of  voices,  echoes  from  my  past. 
Purity,  melancholy,  piety,  a  thousand  memories  of  a  past 
existence,  forms  fantastic  Mid  intangible,  like  the  fleeting 
shadows  of  a  dream  at  waking,  began  to  circle  round  the 
astonished  reader. 

September  20,  1864. — Read  Eugenie  de  Guerin's  vol- 
ume again  right  and  left  with  a  growing  sense  of  attrac- 
tion. Everything  is  heart,  force,  impulse,  in  these  pages 
which  have  the  power  of  .sincerity  and  a  brilliance  of 
suffused  poetry.  A  great  and  strong  soul,  a  clear  mind, 
distinction,  *»levation,  the  freedom  of  unconscious  talent, 
reserve  and  depth — nothing  is  wanting  for  this  Sevigne  of 
the  fields,  who  has  to  hold  herself  in  with  both  hands  lest 
she  should  write  verse,  so  strong  in  her  is  the  artistic 
impulse. 

October  16,  1864. — I  have  just  read  a  part  of  Eugenie 
de  Guerin's  journal  over  again.  It  charmed  me  a  little 
less  than  the  first  time.  The  nature  seemed  to  me  as 
beautiful,  but  the  life  of  Eugenie  was  too  empty,  and  the 
circle  of  ideas  which  occupied  her,  too  narrow. 

It  is  touching  and  wonderful  to  see  how  little  space  is 
enough  for  thought  to  spread  its  wings  in,  but  this  per- 
petual motion  within  the  four  walls  of  a  cell  ends  none  the 
less  by  becoming  wearisome  to  minds  which  are  accustomed 
to  embrace  more  objects  in  their  field  of  vision.  Instead 
of  a  garden,  the  world;  instead  of  a  library,the  whole  of 
literature;  instead  of  three  or  four  faces,  a  whole  people 
and  all  history — this  is  what  the  virile,   the  philosophic 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.  127 

temper  demands.  Men  must  have  more  air,  more  room, 
more  horizon,  more  pot^tive  knowledge,  and  they  end  by 
suffocating  in  this  little  cage  where  Eugenie  lives  and 
moves,  though  the  breath  of  heaven  blows  into  it  and  the 
radiance  of  the  stars  shines  down  upon  it. 

October  27,  1864.  {Promenade  de  la  Treille). — The  air 
this  morning  was  so  perfectly  clear  and  lucid  that  one 
might  have  distinguished  a  figure  on  the  Vouache.*  This 
level  and  brilliant  sun  had  set  fire  to  the  whole  range  of 
autumn  colors;  amber,  saffron,  gold,  sulphur,  yellow 
ochre,  orange,  red,  copper-color,  aquamarine,  amaranth, 
shone  resplendent  on  the  leaves  which  were  still  hanging 
from  the  boughs  or  had  already  fallen  beneath  the  trees.  It 
was  delicious.  The  martial  step  of  our  two  battalions  going 
out  to  their  drilling-ground,  the  sparkle  of  the  guns,  the 
song  of  the  bugles,  the  sharp  distinctness  of  the  house 
outlines,  still  moist  with  the  morning  dew,  the  trans- 
parent coolness  of  all  the  shadows — every  detail  in  the 
scene  was  instinct  with  a  keen  and  wholesome  gayety. 

There  are  two  forms  of  autumn:  there  is  the  misty 
and  dreamy  autumn,  there  is  the  vivid  and  brilliant 
autumn:  almost  the  difference  between  the  two  sexes. 
The  very  word  autumn  is  both  masculine  and  feminine. 
Has  not  every  season,  in  some  fashion,  its  two  sexes?  Has 
it  not  its  minor  and  its  major  key,  its  two  sides  of  light 
and  shadow,  gentleness  and  force?  Perhaps.  All  that 
is  perfect  is  double;  each  face  has  two  profiles,  each  coin' 
two  sides.  The  scarlet  autumn  stands  for  vigorous  activ- 
ity :  the  gray  autumn  for  meditative  feeling.  The  one  is 
expansive  and  overflowing;  the  other  still  and  withdrawn. 
Yesterday  our  thoughts  were  with  the  dead.  To-day  we 
are  celebrating  the  vintage. 

November  16,  1864.— Heard  of  the  death  of .     Will 

and  intelligence  lasted  till  there  was  an  effusion  on  the 
brain  which  stopped  everything. 

A   bubble   of  air   in  the  blood,  a  drop  of  water  in  the 

*  The  Vou^clie  is  the  hill  which  bounds  the  horizon  of  Geneva  to 
the  south-west. 


128  A  MJEL'S  JO  URNAL . 

brain,  and  a  man  is  out  of  gear,  his  machine  falls  to  pieces, 
liis  thought  vanishes,  the  world  disappears  from  him  like  a 
dream  at  morning.  On  what  a  spider  thread  is  hung  our 
individual  existence!  Fragility,  appearance,  nothingness. 
'*  If  it  were  for  our  powers  of  self-detraction  and  forgetful- 
ness,  all  the  fairy  world  which  surrounds  and  draws  us 
would  seem  to  us  but  a  broken  spectre  in  the  darkness, 
an  empty  appearance,  a  fleeting  hallucination.  Appeared 
— disappeared — there  is  the  whole  history  of  a  man,  or  of 
a  world,  or  of  an  infusoria. 

Time  is  the  supreme  illusion.  It  is  but  the  inner 
prism  by  which  we  decompose  being  and  life,  the  mode 
under  which  we  perceive  successively  what  is  simultaneous 
in  idea.  The  eye  does  not  see  a  sphere  all  at  once 
although  the  sphere  exists  all  at  once.  Either  the  sphere 
must  turn  before  the  eye  which  is  looking  at  it,  or  the  eye 
must  go  round  the  sphere.  In  the  first  case  it  is  the  world 
which  unrolls,  or  seems  to  unroll  in  time;  in  the  second 
case  it  is  our  thought  which  successively  analyzes  and 
recomposes.  For  the  supreme  intelligence  there  is  no 
time ;  what  will  be,  is.  Time  and  space  are  fragments  of 
the  infinite  for  the  use  of  finite  creatures.  God  permits 
them,  that  he  may  not  be  alone.  They  are  the  mode 
under  which  creatures  are  possible  and  conceivable.  Let 
us  add  that  they  are  also  the  Jacob's  ladder  of  innumer- 
able steps  by  which  the  creation  reascends  to  its  Creator, 
•  participates  in  being,  tastes  of  life,  perceives  the  absolute, 
and  can  adore  the  fathomless  mystery  of  the  infinite 
'divinity.  That  is  the  other  side  of  the  question.  Our 
life  is  nothing,  it  is  true,  but  our  life  is  divine.  A  breath 
of  nature  annihilates  us,  but  we  surpass  nature  in  pene- 
trating far  beyond  her  vast  phantasmagoria  to  the  change- 
less and  the  eternal.  To  escape  by  the  ecstasy  of  inward 
vision  from  the  whirlwind  of  time,  to  see  one's  self  sub  specie 
eterni  is  the  word  of  command  of  all  the  great  religions  of 
the  higher  races;  and  this  psychological  possibility  is  the 
foundation  of  all  great  hopes.  The  soul  may  be  immortal 
because  she  is  fitted  to  rise  toward  that  which  is  neither 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.  129 

born  nor  dies,   toward    that    which   exists  substantially, 
necessarily,  invariably,  that  is  to  say  toward  God. 

To  know  how  to  suggest  is  the  great  art  of  teaching. 
To  attain  it  we  must  be  able  to  guess  what  will  interest; 
we  must  learn  to  read  the  ch^ildish  soul  as  we  might  a  piece 
of  music.  Then,  by  simply  changing  the  key,  we  keep 
up  the  attraction  and  vary  the  song. 


The  germs  of  all  things  are  in  every  heart,  and  the 
greatest  criminals  as  well  as  the  greatest  heroes  are  but 
different  modes  of  ourselves.  Only  evil  grows  of  itself, 
while  for  goodness  we  want  effort  and  courage. 


Melancholy  is  at  the  bottom  of  everything,  just  as  at  the 
end  of  all  rivers  is  the  sea.  Can  it  be  otherwise  in  a  world 
where  nothing  lasts,  where  all  that  we  have  loved  or  shall 
love  must  die?  Is  death,  then,  the  secret  of  life?  The 
gloom  of  an  eternal  mourning  enwraps,  more  or  less  closely, 
every  serious  and  thoughtful  soul,  as  night  enwraps  the 
universe. 


A  man  takes  to  "piety"  from  a  thousand  different 
I'easons — from  imitation  or  from  eccentricity,  from  bravado 
or  from  reverence,  from  shame  of  the  past  or  from  terror 
of  the  future,  from  weakness  and  from  pride,  for  pleasure's 
sake  or  for  punishment's  sake,  in  order  to  be  able  to  judge, 
or  in  order  to  escape  being  judged,  and  for  a  thousand 
other  reasons;  but  he  only  becomes  truly  religious  for 
i'eligion's  sake. 


January  11,  1865. — It  is  pleasant  to  feel  nobly — that 
is  to  say,  to  live  above  the  lowlands  of  vulgarity.  Manu- 
facturing Americanism  and  Caesarian  democracy  tend 
equally  to  the  multiplying  of  crowds,  governed  by  appetite, 
applauding  charlatanism,  vowed  to  the  worship  of  mam- 
mon and  of  pleasure,  and  adoring  no  other  God  than  force. 
What  poor  samples  of  mankind  they  are  who  make  up  this 
growing  majority!     Oh,  let  us  remain  faithful  to  the  altar* 


1 30  AMIBVS  JO  URNAL. 

of  the  ideal!  It  is  possible  that  the  spiritualists  may 
become  the  stoics  of  a  new  epoch  of  Caesarian  rule. 
Materialistic  naturalism  has  the  wind  in  its  sails,  and  a 
general  moral  deterioration  is  preparing.  No  matter,  so 
long  as  the  salt  does  not  lose  its  savor,  and  so  long  as  the" 
friends  of  the  higher  life  maintain  the  fire  of  Vesta. 
The  wood  itself  may  choke  the  flame,  but  if  the  flame 
persists,  the  fire  will  only  be  the  more  splendid  in  the  end. 
The  great  democratic  deluge  will  not  after  all  be  able  to 
effect  what  the  invasion  of  the  barbarians  was  powerless  to 
bring  about;  it  will  not'  drown  altogether  the  results  of 
the  higher  culture;  but  we  must  resign  ourselves  to  the 
fact  that  it  tends  in  the  beginning  to  deform  and  vulgarize 
everything.  It  is  clear  that  aesthetic  delicacy,  elegance, 
distinction,  and  nobleness — that  atticism,  urbanity,  what- 
ever is  suave  and  exquisite,  fine  and  subtle— all  that 
makes  the  charm  of  the  higher  kinds  of  literature  and  of 
aristocratic  cultivation — vanishes  simultaneously  with  the 
society  which  corresponds  to  it.  If,  as  Pascal,*  I  think, 
says,  the  more  one  develops,  the  more  difference  one  ob- 
serves between  man  and  man,  then  we  cannot  say  that  the 
democratic  instinct  tends  to  mental  development,  since  it 
tends  to  make  a  man  believe  that  the  pretensions  nave 
only  to  be  the  same  to  make  the  merits  equal  also. 

March  20,  1865. — I  have  just  heard  of  fresh  cases  of 
insubordination  among  the  students.  Our  youth  become 
less  and  less  docile,  and  seem  to  take  for  their  motto, 
'•'Our  master  is  our  enemy."  The  boy  insists  upon  having 
the  privileges  of  the  young  man,  and  the  young  man 
tries  to  keep  those  of  the  gamin.  At  bottom  all  this  is 
the  natural  consequence  of  our  system  of  leveling  democ- 
racy. As  soon  as  difference  of  quality  is,  in  politics, 
officially  equal  to  zero,  the  authority  of  age,  of  knowledge, 
and  of  function  disappears. 

*  The  saying  of  Pascal's  alluded  to  is  in  the  Pensee^,  Art.xi.No.lO: 
*'  A  mesure  qu'on  a  plus  d'esprit  on  trouve  qu'il  y  a  plus  d'hommes 
originaux.  Les  gens  du  commun  ne  trouvent  pas  de  difference 
entre  les  hommes." 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  131 

The  only  counterpoise  of  pure  equality  is  military  dis- 
cipline. In  military  uniform,  in  the  police  court,  in 
prison,  or  on  the  execution  ground,  there  is  no  reply  pos- 
sible. But  is  it  not  curious  that  the  regime  of  individual 
right  should  lead  to  nothing  but  respect  for  brute 
strength?  Jacobinism  brings  with  it  Csesarism;  the  rule 
of  the  tongue  leads  to  the  rule  of  the  sword.  Democracy 
and  liberty  are  not  one  but  two.  A  republic  supposes  a 
high  state  of  morals,  but  no  such  state  of  morals  is  pos- 
sible without  the  habit  of  respect;  and  there  is  no  respect 
without  humility.  Now  the  pretension  that  every  man 
has  the  necessary  qualities  of  a  citizen,  simply  because 
he  was  born  twenty-one  years  ago,  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  labor,  merit,  virtue,  character,  and  experience  are  to 
count  for  nothing;  and  we  destroy  humility  when  we  pro- 
claim that  a  man  becomes  the  equal  of  all  other  men,  by 
the  mere  mechanical  and  vegetative  process  of  natural 
growth.  Such  a  claim  annihilates  even  the  respect  for 
age;  for  as  the  elector  of  twenty-one  is  worth  as  much  as 
the  elector  of  fifty,  the  boy  of  nineteen  has  no  serious 
reason  to  believe  himself  in  any  way  the  inferior  of  his 
elder  by  one  or  two  years.  Thus  the  fiction  on  which  the 
political  order  of  democracy  is  based  ends  in  something 
altogether  opposed  to  that  which  democracy  desires:  its 
aim  was  to  increase  the  whole  sum  of  liberty;  but  the 
result  is  to  diminish  it  for  all. 

The  modern  state  is  founded  on  the  philosophy  of  atom- 
ism. Nationality,  public  spirit,  tradition,  national  man- 
ners, disappear  like  so  many  hollow  and  worn-out  entities; 
nothing  remains  to  create  movement  but  the  action  of 
molecular  force  and  of  dead  weight.  In  such  a  theory 
liberty  is  identified  with  caprice,  and  the  collective  reason 
and  age-long  tradition  of  an  old  society  are  nothing  more 
than  soap-bubbles  which  the  smallest  urchin  may  shiver 
with  a  snap  of  the  fingers. 

Does  this  mean  that  I  am  an  opponent  of  democracy? 
Not  at  all.  Fiction  for  fiction,  it  is  the  least  harmful. 
But  it  is  well  not  to  confound  its  promises  with  realities. 


133  AMIEVS  JOURNAL. 

The  fiction  consists  in  the  postulate  of  all  democratic 
government,  that  the  great  majority  of  the  electors  in  a 
state  are  enlightened,  free,  honest,  and  patriotic — whereas 
such  a  postulate  is  a  mere  chimera.  The  majority  in  any 
state  is  necessarily  composed  of  the  most  ignorant,  the 
poorest,  and  the  least  capable ;  the  state  is  therefore  at  the 
mercy  of  accident  and  passion,  and  it  always  ends  by  suc- 
cumbing at  one  time  or  another  to  the  rash  conditions 
which  have  been  made  for  its  existence.  A  man  who  con- 
demns himself  to  live  upon  the  tight-rope  must  inevitably 
fall ;  one  has  no  need  to  be  a  prophet  to  foresee  such  a 
result. 

'Aptdrov  fikv  vSoapy  said  Pindar;  the  best  thing  in  the 
world  is  wisdom,  and,  in  default  of  wisdom,  science. 
States,  churches,  society  itself,  may  fall  to  pieces;  science 
alone  has  nothing  to  fear — until  at  least  society  once  more 
falls  a  prey  to  barbarism.  Unfortunately  this  triumph  of 
barbarism  is  not  impossible.  The  victory  of  the  socialist 
Utopia,  or  the  horrors  of  a  religious  war,  reserve  for  us 
perhaps  even  this  lamentable  experience. 

April  3,  1865. — What  doctor  possesses  such  curative 
resources  as  those  latent  in  a  spark  of  happiness  or  a  single 
ray  of  hope?  The  mainspring  of  life  is  in  the  heart.  Joy 
is  the  vital  air  of  the  soul,  and  grief  is  a  kind  of  asthma 
complicated  by  atony.  Our  dependence  upon  surrounding 
circumstances  increases  with  our  own  physical  weakness, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  in  health  there  is  liberty.  Health 
is  the  first  of  all  liberties,  and  happiness  gives  us  the 
energy  which  is  the  basis  of  health.  To  make  any  one 
happy,  theij,  is  strictly  to  augment  his  store  of  being,  to 
double  the  intensity  of  his  life,  to  reveal  him  to  himself, 
to  ennoble  him  and  transfigure  him.  Happiness  does 
away  with  ugliness,  and  even  makes  the  beauty  of  beauty. 
The  man  who  doubts  it,  can  never  have  watched  the  first 
gleams  of  tenderness  dawning  in  the  clear  eyes  of  one  who 
loves;  sunrise  itself  is  a  lesser  marvel.  In  paradise,  then, 
everybody  will  be  beautiful.  For,  as  the  righteous  soul  is 
naturally    beautiful,   as   the    spiritual    body   is   but  the 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  133 

visibility  of  the  soul,  its  impalpable  and  angelic  form,  and 
as  happiness  beautifies  all  that  it  penetrates  or  even 
touches,  ugliness  will  have  no  more  place  in  the  universe, 
and  will  disappear  with  grief,  sin,  and  death. 

To  the  materialist  philosopher  the  beautiful  is  a  mere 
accident,  and  therefore  rare.  To  the  spiritualist  philoso- 
pher tlie  beautiful  is  the  rule,  the  law,  the  uni\ersal 
foundation  of  things,  to  which  every  form  returns  as  soor 
as  the  force  of  accident  is  withdrawn.  Why  are  we  ugly? 
Because  we  are  not  in  the  angelic  state,  because  we  are 
evil,  morose,  and  unhappy. 

Heroism,  ecstasy,  prayer,  love,  enthusiasm,  weave  a 
halo  round  the  brow,  for  they  are  a  setting  free  of  the 
soul,  which  through  them  gains  force  to  make  its  envelope 
^.^Tansparent  and  shine  through  upon  all  around  it.  Beauty 
is,  then,  a  phenomenon  belonging  to  the  spiritualization 
of  matter.  It  is  a  momentary  transfiguration  of  the  privi- 
leged object  or  being — a  token  fallen  from  heaven  to  earth 
in  order  to  remind  us  of  the  ideal  world.  To  study  it,  is 
to  Platonize  almost  inevitably.  As  a  powerful  electric 
current  can  render  metals  luminous,  and  reveal  their 
essence  by  the  color  of  their  flame,  so  intense  life  and 
supreme  joy  can  make  the  most  simple  mortal  dazzlingly 
beautiful.  Man,  therefore,  is  never  more  truly  man  than 
in  these  divine  states. 

The  ideal,  after  all,  is  truer  than  the  real:  for  the  ideal 
is  the  eternal  element  in  perishable  things:  it  is  their 
type,  their  sum,  their  raison  d'etre^  their  formula  in  the 
book  of  the  Creator,  and  therefore  at  once  the  most  exact 
and  the  most  condensed  expression  of  them. 

April  11,  1865. — I  have  been  measuring  and  making  a 
trial  of  the  new  gray  plaid  which  is  to  take  the  place  of 
my  old  mountain  shawl.  The  old  servant  which  has  been 
my  companion  for  ten  years,  and  which  recalls  to  me  so 
many  poetical  and  delightful  memories,  pleases  me  better 
t^an  its  brilliant  successor,  even  though  this  last  has  been 
a  present  from  a  friendly  hand.  But  can  anything  take 
the  place  of  the  nast  and  have  not  even  the  inanimate 


134  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

witnesses  e^  our  life  voice  and  language  for  us?  Glion, 
Villars,  Albisbrunnen,  the  Righi,  the  Chamossaire,  and  a 
hundred  other  places,  have  loft  something  of  themselves 
behind  them  in  the  meshes  of  this  woolen  stuff  which 
makes  a  part  of  my  most  intimate  historj'.  The  shawl, 
besides,  is  the  only  chivalrous  article  of  dress  which  is  still 
left  to  the  modern  traveler,  the  only  thing  about  him 
which  may  be  useful  to  others  than  himself,  and  by  means 
of  which  he  may  still  do  his  devoir  to  fair  women!  How 
many  times  mine  has  served  them  for  a  cushion,  a  cloak, 
a  shelter,  on  the  damp  grass  of  the  Alps,  on  seats  of  hard 
rock,  or  in  the  sudden  cool  of  the  pinewood,  during  the 
walks,  the  rests,  the  readings,  and  the  chats  of  mountain 
life!  How  many  kindly  smiles  it  has  won  for  me!  Even 
its  blemishes  are  dear  to  me,  for  each  darn  and  tear  has  its- 
story,  each  scar  is  an  armorial  bearing.  This  tear  was 
made  by  a  hazel  tree  under  Jaman — that  by  the  buckle  of 
a  strap  on  the  Frohnalp — that,  again,  by  a  bramble  at 
Charnex;  and  each  time  fairy  needles  have  repaired  the 
injury. 

"  Mon  vieux  manteau,  que  je  vous  remercie 
Car  c'est  a  vous  que  je  dois  ces  plaisirs!  " 

And  has  it  not  been  to  me  a  friend  in  suffering,  a  com- 
panion in  good  and  evil  fortune?  It  reminds  me  of  that 
centaur's  tunic  which  could  not  be  torn  off  without  carry- 
ing away  the  flesh  and  blood  of  its  wearer.  I  am  unwilling 
to  give  it  up;  whatever  giatitude  for  the  past,  and  what- 
ever piety  toward  my  vanished  youth  is  in  me,  seem  to 
forbid  it.  The  warp  of  this  rag  is  woven  out  of  Alpine 
joys,  and  its  woof  out  of  human  affections.  It  also  says 
to  me  in  its  own  way: 

"Pauvre  bouquet,  fleurs  aujourd'hui  fanees!  " 

And  the  appeal  is  one  of  those  which  move  the  heart, 
although  profane  ears  neither  hear  it  nor  understand  it. 
.  What  a  stab  there  is  in  those  words,  tliou  hast  been! 
when  the  sense  of  them  becomes  absolutely  clear  to  us. 
One  feels  one's  self  sinking  gradually  into  one's  grave,  and 


AMIEUS  JO  URN  A  L.  135 

the  past  tense  sounds  the  knell  of  our  illusions  as  to  our- 
selves. What  is  past  is  past :  gray  hairs  will  never  become 
black  curls  again;  the  forces,  the  gifts,  the  attractions  of 
youth,  have  vanished  with  our  young  days. 

"Plus  d'amour;  partant  plus  de  joie." 

How  hard  it  is  to  grow  old,  when  we  have  missed  our 
life,  when  we  have  neither  the  crown  of  completed  man- 
hood nor  of  fatherhood !  How  sad  it  is  to  feel  the  mind 
declining  before  it  has  done  its  work,  and  the  body  grow- 
ing weaker  before  it  has  seen  itself  renewed  in  those  who 
might  close  our  eyes  and  honor  our  name !  The  tragic 
solemnity  of  existence  strikes  us  with  terrible  force,  on 
that  morning  when  we  wake  to  find  the  mournful  word 
too  late  ringing  in  our  ears !  "  Too  late,  the  sand  is  turned, 
the  hour  is  past!  Thy  harvest  is  unreaped — too  late! 
Thou  hast  been  dreaming,  forgetting,  sleeping — so  much 
the  worse!  Every  man  rewards  or  punishes  himself.  To 
whom  or  of  whom  wouldst  thou  complain?" — Alas! 

April  21,  18G5.  {Mornex). — A  morning  of  intoxicating 
beauty,  fresh  as  the  feelings  of  sixteen,  and  crowned  with 
flowers  like  a  bride.  The  poetry  of  youth,  of  innocence, 
and  of  love,  overflowed  my  soul.  Even  to  the  light  mist 
hovering  over  the  bosom  of  the  plain — image  of  that  ten- 
der modesty  which  veils  the  features  and  shrouds  in  mys- 
tery the  inmost  thoughts  of  the  maiden — everything  that 
I  saw  delighted  my  eyes  and  spoke  to  my  imagination.  It 
was  a  sacred,  a  nuptial  day !  and  the  matin  bells  ringing  in 
some  distant  village  harmonized  marvelously  with  the 
hymn  of  nature.  "Pray,"  they  said,  "and  love!  Adore 
a  fatherly  and  beneficent  God."  They  recalled  to  me  the 
accent  of  Haydn ;  there  was  in  them  and  in  the  landscape 
a  childlike  joyousness,  a  naive  gratitude,  a  radiant  heavenly 
joy  innocent  of  pain  and  sin,  like  the  sacred,  simple-hearted 
ravishment  of  Eve  on  the  first  day  of  her  awakening  in 
the  new  world.  How  good  a  thing  is  feeling,  admiration.' 
It  is  the  bread  of  angels,  the  eternal  food  of  cherubim  and 
seraphim. 


136  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

I  have  not  yet  felt  the  air  so  pure,8o  life-giving,  so  ethereal, 
during  the  five  days  that  I  have  been  here.  To  breathe  is 
a  beatitude.  One  understands  the  delights  of  a  bird's 
existence — that  emancipation  from  all  encumbering  weight 
— that  luminous  and  empyrean  life,  floating  in  blue  space, 
and  passing  from  one  horizon  to  another  with  a  stroke  of 
the  wing.  One  must  have  a  great  deal  of  air  below  one 
before  one  can  be  conscious  of  such  inner  freedom  as  this, 
such  lightness  of  the  whole  being.  Every  element  has  its 
poetry,  but  the  poetry  of  air  is  liberty.  Enough ;  to  your 
work,  dreamer! 

May  30,  1865. — All  snakes  fascinate  their  prey,  and  pure 
wickedness  seems  to  inherit  the  power  of  fascination 
granted  to  the  serpent.  It  stupefies  and  bewilders  the 
simple  heart,  which  sees  it  without  understanding  it, 
which  touches  it  without  being  able  to  believe  in  it,  and 
which  sinks  engulfed  in  the  problem  of  it,  like  Empedocles 
in  Etna.  Non  possum  capere  te,  cape  me,  says  the 
Aristotelian  motto.  Every  diminutive  of  Beelzebub  is  an 
abyss,  each  demoniacal  act  is  a  gulf  of  darkness.  Natural 
cruelty,  inborn  perfidy  and  falseness,  even  in  animals,  cast 
lurid  gleams,  as  it  were,  into  that  fathomless  pit  of  Satanic 
perversity  which  is  a  moral  reality. 

Nevertheless  behind  this  thought  there  rises  another 
which  tells  me  that  sophistry  is  at  the  bottom  of  human 
wickedness,  that  the  majority  of  monsters  like  to  justify 
themselves  in  their  own  eyes,  and  that  the  first  attribute 
of  the  Evil  One  is  to  be  the  father  of  lies.  Before  crime 
is  committed  conscience  must  be  corrupted,  and  every  bad 
man  who  succeeds  in  reaching  a  high  point  of  wickedness 
begins  with  this.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  hatred  is 
murder;  the  man  who  hates  is  determined  to  see  nothing 
in  it  but  an  act  of  moral  hygiene.  It  is  to  do  himself 
good  that  he  does  evil,  just  as  a  mad  dog  bites  to  get  rid 
of  his  thirst. 

To  injure  others  while  at  the  same  time  knowingly 
injuring  one's  self  is  a  step  farther;  evil  then  becomes  a 
frenzy,  which,  in  its  turn,  sharpens  into  a  cold  ferocity- 


AMIEVS  JOURNAL.  137 

Whenever  a  man,  under  the  influence  of  such  a  diabolical 
passion,  surrenders  himself  to  these  instincts  of  the  wild  or 
venomous  beast  lie  must  seem  to  the  angels  a  madman — a 
lunatic,  who  kindles  his  own  Gehenna  that  he  may  con- 
sume the  world  in  it,  or  as  much  of  it  as  his  devilish 
desires  can  lay  hold  upon.  Wickedness  is  forever  begin- 
ning a  new  spiral  which  penetrates  deeper  still  into  the 
abysses  of  abomination,  for  the  circles  of  hell  have  tliis 
property — that  they  have  no  end.  It  seems  as  though 
divine  perfection  were  an  infinite  of  the  first  degree,  but  as 
though  diabolical  perfection  were  an  infinite  of  unknown 
power.  But  no;  for  if  so,  evil  would  be  the  true  God, 
and  hell  would  swallow  up  creation.  According  to  the 
Persian  and  the  Christian  faiths,  good  is  to  conquer  evil, 
and  perhaps  even  Satan  himself  will  be  restored  to  grace 
— which  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  the  divine  order  will  be 
everywhere  re-established.  Love  will  be  more  potent  than 
hatred ;  God  will  save  his  glory,  and  his  glory  is  in  his 
goodness.  But  it  is  very  true  that  all  gratuitous  wicked- 
ness troubles  the  soul,  because  it  seems  to  make  the  great 
lines  of  the  moral  order  tremble  within  us  by  the  sudden 
withdrawal  of  the  curtain  which  hides  from  us  the  action 
of  those  dark  corrosive  forces  which  have  ranged  them- 
selves in  battle  against  the  divine  plan. 

June  26,  1865. — One  may  guess  the  why  and  wherefore 
of  a  tear  and  yet  find  it  too  subtle  to  give  any  account  of. 
A  tear  may  be  the  poetical  resume  ot  so  many  simultaneous 
impressions,  the  quintessence  of  so  many  opposing  thoughts ! 
It  is  like  a  drop  of  one  of  those  precious  elixirs  of  the 
East  which  contain  the  life  of  twenty  plants  fused  into  a 
single  aroma.  Sometimes  it  is  the  mere  overflow  of  the 
soul,  the  running  over  of  the  cup  of  reverie.  All  that  one 
cannot  or  will  not  say,  all  that  one  refuses  to  confess  even 
to  one's  self — confused  desires,  secret  trouble,  suppressed 
grief,  smothered  conflict,  voiceless  regret,  the  emotions 
we  have  struggled  against,  the  pain  we  have  sought  to 
hide,  our  superstitious  fears,  our  vague  sufferings,  our  rest- 
less presentiments,  our  unrealized  dreams,    the    wound? 


^38  AMI  ELS  JOURNAL. 

inflicted  upon  our  ideal,  the  dissatisfied  languor,  the  vaiit 
hopes,  the  multitude  of  small  indiscernible  ills  whick 
accumulate  slowly  in  a  corner  of  the  heart  like  water 
dropping  noiselessly  from  the  roof  of  a  cavern — all  these 
mysterious  movements  of  the  inner  life  end  in  an  instant 
of  emotion,  and  the  emotion  concentrates  itself  in  a  tear 
just  visible  en  the  edge  of  the  eyelid. 

For  the  rest,  tears  express  joy  as  well  as  sadness.  They 
are  the  symbol  of  the  powerlessness  of  the  soul  to  restrain 
its  emotion  and  to  remain  mistress  of  itself.  Speech 
implies  analysis;  when  we  are  overcome  by  sensation  or 
by  feeling  analysis  ceases,  and  with  it  speech  and  liberty. 
Our  only  resource,  after  silence  and  stupor,  is  the  language 
of  action — pantomime.  Any  oppressive  weight  of  thought 
carries  us  back  to  a  stage  anterior  to  humanity,  to  a  ges- 
ture, a  cry,  a  sob,  and  at  last  to  swooning  and  collapse; 
that  is  to  say,  incapable  of  bearing  the  excessive  strain  of 
sensation  as  men,  we  fall  back  successively  to  the  stage  of 
mere  animate  being,  and  then  to  that  of  the  vegetable. 
Dante  swoons  at  every  turn  in  his  journey  through  hell, 
and  nothing  paints  better  the  violence  of  his  emotions  and 
the  ardor  of  his  piety. 

.  .  .  And  intense  joy?  It  also  withdraws  into  itself 
and  is  silent.  To  speak  is  to  disperse  and  scatter.  Words 
isolate  and  localize  life  in  a  single  point;  they  touch  only 
the  circumference  of  being;  they  analyze,  they  treat  one 
thing  at  a  time.  Thus  they  decentralize  emotion,  and 
chill  it  in  doing  so.  The  heart  would  fain  brood  over  its 
feeling,  cherishing  and  protecting  it.  Its  happiness  is 
silent  and  meditative;  it  listens  to  its  own  beating  and 
feeds  religiously  upon  itself. 

Augusts,  1865.  {Gryonsur  Bex). — Splendid  moonlight 
without  a  cloud.  The  night  is  solemn  and  majestic.  The 
regiment  of  giants  sleeps  while  the  stars  keep  sentinel. 
In  the  vast  shadow  of  the  valley  glimmer  a  few  scattered 
roofs,  while  the  torrent,  organ-like,  swells  its  eternal  note 
in  the  depths  of  this  mountain  cathedral  which  has  the 
heavens  for  roof. 


AMtEVS  JOURNAL.  139> 

A  last  look  at  this  blue  night  and  boundless  landscape. 
Jupiter  is  just  setting  on  the  counterscarp  of  the  Dent 
du  Midi.  From  the  starry  vault  descends  an  invisible 
snow-shower  of  dreams,  calling  us  to  a  pure  sleep. 
Nothing  of  voluptuous  or  enervating  in  this  nature.  All 
is  strong,  austere  and  pure.  Good  night  to  all  the  world ! 
— to  the  unfortunate  and  to  the  happy.  Rest  and  refresh- 
ment, renewal  and  hope;  a  day  is  dead — vive  le  lendemain! 
Midnight  is  striking.  Another  step  made  toward  the 
tomb. 

August  13,  1865. — I  have  just  read  through  again  the 
letter  of  J.  J.  Rousseau  to  Archbishop  Beaumont  with  a 
little  less  admiration  than  I  felt  for  it — was  it  ten  or 
twelve  years  ago?  This  emphasis,  this  precision,  which 
never  tires  of  itself,  tires  the  reader  in  the  long  run.  The 
intensity  of  the  style  produces  on  one  the  impression  of  a 
treatise  on  mathematics.  One^  feels  the  need  of  relaxation 
after  it  in  something  easy,  natural,  and  gay.  The 
language  of  Rousseau  demands  an  amount  of  labor  which, 
makes  one  long  for  recreation  and  relief. 

But  how  many  writers  and  how  many  books  descend 
from  our  Rousseau!  On  ray  way  I  noticed  the  points 
of  departure  of  Chdteaubriand,  Lamennais,  Proudhon. 
Proudhon,  for  instance,  modeled  the  plan  of  his  great 
work,  "De  la  Justice  dans  I'Eglise  et  dans  la  Revolution," 
upon  the  letter  of  Rousseau  to  Beaumont;  his  three  vol- 
umes are  a  string  of  letters  to  an  archbishop;  eloquence, 
daring,  and  elocution  are  all  fused  in  a  kind  of  persiflage^ 
which  is  the  foundation  of  the  whole. 

How  many  men  we  may  find  in  one  man,  how  many 
styles  in  a  great  writer!  Rousseau,  for  instance,  has 
created  a  number  of  different  genres.  Imagination  trans- 
forms him,  and  he  is  able  to  play  the  most  varied  parts 
with  credit,  among  them  even  that  of  the  pure  logician. 
But  as  the  imagination  is  his  intellectual  axis — his  master 
faculty — he  is,  as  it  were,  in  all  his  works  only  hall 
sincere,  only  half  in  earnest.  We  feel  that  his  talent  has 
laid  him   the  wager  Df  Carueades;  it  will  lose  no  cause. 


140  AMIKL'S  JOURNAL. 

however  bad,  as  soon  as  the  point  of  honor  is  engaged.  It 
is  indeed  the  temptation  of  all  talent  to  subordinate  things 
to  itself  and  not  itself  to  things;  to  conquer  for  the  sake  of 
conquest,  and  to  put  self-love  in  the  place.of  conscience. 
Talent  is  glad  enough,  no  doubt,  to  triumph  in  a  good 
cause;  but  it  easily  becomes  a  free  lance,  content,  what- 
ever the  cause,  so  long  as  victory  follows  its  banner.  I  do 
not  know  even  whether  success  in  a  weak  and  bad  cause  is 
not  the  most  flattering  for  talent,  which  then  divides  the 
honors  of  its  triumph  with  nothing  and  no  one. 

Paradox  is  the  delight  of  clever  people  and  the  joy  of 
talent.  It  is  so  pleasant  to  pit  one's  self  against  the  world, 
and  to  overbear  mere  commonplace  good  sense  and  vulgar 
platitudes!  Talent  and  love  of  truth  are  then  not  iden- 
tical; their  tendencies  and  their  paths  are  different.  In 
order  to  make  talent  obey  when  its  instinct  is  rather  to 
command,  a  vigilant  mora],  sense  and  great  energy  of  char- 
acter are  needed.  The  Greeks — those  artists  of  the  spoken 
or  written  word — were  artificial  by  the  time  of  Ulys?es, 
sophists  by  the  time  of  Pericles,  cunning,  rhetorical,  and 
versed  in  all  the  arts  of  the  courtier  down  to  the  end  of 
the  lower  empire.  From  the  talent  of  the  nation  sprang 
its  vices. 

For  a  man  to  make  his  mark,  like  Kousseau  by  polemics, 
is  to  condemn  himself  to  perpetual  exaggeration  and  con- 
flict. Such  a  man  expiates  his  celebrity  by  a  double 
bitterness;  he  is  never  altogether  true,  and  he  is  never 
able  to  recover  the  free  disposal  of  himself.  To  pick  a 
quarrel  with  the  world  is  attractive,  but  dangerous. 

J.  J.  Eousseau  is  an  ancestor  in  all  things.  It  was  he 
who  founded  traveling  on  foot  before  Topffer,  reverie 
before  "  Rene,"  literary  botany  before  George  Sand,  the  wor- 
ship of  nature  before  Bernardin  de  S.  Pierre,  the  demo« 
cratic  theory  before  the  Revolution  of  1789,  political  dis- 
cussion and  theological  discussion  before  Mirabeau  and 
Renan,  the  science  of  teaching  before  Pestalozzi,  and 
Alpine  description  before  De  Saussure.  He  made  music 
the  fashion,  and  created  the  taste  for  confessions  to  th» 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  Ul 

public.  He  formed  a  new  French  style — the  close,  chas- 
tened, passionate,  interwoven  style  we  know  so  well. 
Nothing  indeed  of  Eousseau  has  been  lost,  and  nobody  has 
had  more  influence  than  he  upon  the  French  Revolution, 
for  lie  was  the  demigod  of  it,  and  stands  between  Neckar 
and  Napoleon.  Nobody,  again,  has  had  more  than  h© 
upon  the  nineteenth  century,  for  Byron,  Chateaubriand, 
Madame  de  Stael,  and  George  Sand  all  descend  from  him. 

And  yet,  with  these  extraordinary  talents,  he  was  an 
extremely  unhappy  man — why?  Because  he  always 
allowed  himself  to  be  mastered  by  his  imagination  and  his 
sensations;  because  he  had  no  judgment  in  deciding,  no 
self-control  in  acting.  Regret  indeed  on  this  score  would 
be  hardly  reasonable,  for  a  calm,  judicious,  orderly  Rous- 
seau would  never  have  made  so  great  an  impression.  He 
came  into  collision  with  his  time:  hence  his  eloquence 
and  his  misfortunes.  His  naive  confidence  in  life  and 
himself  ended  in  jealous  misanthropy  and  hypochondria. 

What  a  contrast  to  Goethe  or  Voltaire,  and  how  differ- 
ently they  understood  the  practical  wisdom  of  life  and  the 
management  of  literary  gifts!  They  were  the  able  men — 
Rousseau  is  a  visionary.  They  knew  mankind  as  it  is — he 
always  represented  it  to  himself  either  whiter  or  blacker 
than  it  is;  and  having  begun  by  taking  life  the  wrong 
way,  he  ended  in  madness.  In  the  talent  of  Rousseau 
there  is  always  something  unwholesome,  uncertain,  stormy, 
and  sophistical,  which  destroys  the  confidence  of  the  reader;, 
and  the  reason  is  no  doubt  that  we  feel  passion  to  have 
been  the  governing  force  in  him  as  a  writer:  passion 
stirred  his  imagination,  and  ruled  supreme  over  his  reason. 


Our  systems,  perhaps,  are  nothing  more  than  an  uncon- 
scious apology  for  our  faults — a  gigantic  scaffolding  whose 
object  is  to  hide  from  us  our  favorite  sin. 

The  unfinished  is  nothing. 


Great  men  are  the  true  men,  the  men  in  whom  nature 


143  A  MI  ML' 8  JO  URN  A  L. 

has  sncceeded.  They  are  not  extraordinary — they  are  in 
the  true  order.  It  is  the  other  species  of  men  who  are  not 
what  they  ought  to  be. 


January  7,  1866. — Our  life  is  but  a  soap-bubble  hanging 
from  a  reed ;  it  is  formed,  expands  to  its  full  size,  clothes 
itself  with  the  loveliest  colors  of  the  prism,  and  even 
escapes  at  moments  from  the  law  of  gravitation ;  but  soon 
the  black  speck  appears  in  it,  and  the  globe  of  emerald 
and  gold  vanishes  into  space,  leaving  behind  it  nothing 
'but  a  simple  drop  of  turbid  water.  All  the  poets  have 
made  this  comparison,  it  is  so  striking  and  so  true.  To 
appear,  to  shine,  to  disappear;  to  be  born,  to  suffer,  and 
to  die;  is  it  not  the  whole  sum  of  life,  for  a  butterfly,  for 
a  nation,  for  a  star? 

Time  is  but  the  measure  of  the  difficulty  of  a  concep- 
tion. Pure  thought  has  scarcely  any  need  of  time,  since 
it  perceives  the  two  ends  of  an  idea  almost  at  the  same 
moment.  The  thought  of  a  planet  can  only  be  worked 
out  by  nature  with  labor  and  effort,  but  supreme  intelli- 
gence sums  up  the  whole  in  an  instant.  Time  is  then  the 
successive  dispersion  of  being,  just  as  speech  is  the  suc- 
cessive analysis  of  an  intuition  or  of  an  act  of  will.  In 
itself  it  is  relative  and  negative,  and  disappears  within  the 
absolute  being.  God  is  outside  time  because  he  thinks  all 
thought  at  once;  Nature  is  within  time  because  she  is 
only  speech — the  discursive  unfolding  of  each  thought 
contained  within  the  infinite  thought.  But  nature  exhausts, 
herself  in  this  impossible  task,  for  the  analysis  of  the 
infinite  is  a  contradiction.  With  limitless  duration,  bound- 
less space,  and  number  without  end.  Nature  does  at  least 
what  she  can  to  translate  into  visible  form  the  wealth  of 
the  creative  formula.  By  the  vastness  of  the  abysses  into 
which  she  penetrates,  in  the  effort — the  unsuccessful  effort 
— to  house  and  contain  the  eternal  thought,  Ave  may  meas- 
ure the  greatness  of  the  divine  mind.  For  as  soon  as  this 
mind  goes  out  of  itself  and  seeks  to  explain  itself,  the 
effort  at  utterance  heaps  universe  upon  universe,  during 


AMIEU 8  JOURNAL.  U3 

myriads  of  centuries,  and  still  it  is  not  expressed,  and  the 
great  harangue  must  go  on  for  ever  and  ever. 

The  East  prefers  immobility  as  the  form  of  the  Infinite : 
the  West,  movement.  It  is  because  the  West  is  infected 
by  the  passion  for  details,  and  sets  proud  store  by  indi- 
vidual worth.  Like  a  child  upon  whom  a  hundred  thous- 
and francs  have  been  bestowed,  he  thinks  she  is  multiply- 
ing her  fortune  by  counting  it  out  in  pieces  of  twenty  sous, 
or  five  centimes.  Her  passion  for  progress  is  in  great  part 
the  product  of  an  infatuation,  which  consists  in  forgetting 
+,he  goal  to  be  aimed  at,  and  absorbing  herself  in  the  pride 
and  delight  of  each  tiny  step,  one  after  the  other.  Child 
that  she  is,  she  is  even  capable  of  confounding  change 
with  improvement — beginning  over  again,  with  growth  in 
perfectness. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  modern  man  there  is  always  a 
great  thirst  for  self-forgetfulness,  self-distraction;  he  has  a 
secret  horror  of  all  which  makes  him  feel  his  own  little- 
ness; the  eternal,  the  infinite,  perfection,  therefore  scare 
and  terrify  him.  He  wishes  to  approve  himself,  to  admire 
and  congratulate  himself;  and  therefore  he  turns  away 
from  all  those  problems  and  abysses  which  might  recall  to 
him  his  own  nothingness.  This  is  what  makes  the  real 
pettiness  of  so  many  of  our  gi^eat  minds,  and  accounts  for 
the  lack  of  personal  dignity  among  us — civilized  parrots 
that  we  are—as  compared  with  the  Arab  of  the  desert;  or 
explains  the  growing  frivolity  of  our  masses,  more  and 
more  educated,  no  doubt,  but  also  more  and  more  super- 
ficial in  all  their  conceptions  of  happiness. 

Here,  then,  is  the  service  which  Christianity — the 
oriental  element  in  our  culture — renders  to  us  Westerns. 
It  checks  and  counterbalances  our  natural  tendency  toward 
the  passing,  the  finite,  and  the  changeable,  by  fixing  the 
mind  upon  the  contemplation  of  eternal  things,  and  by 
Platonizing  our  affections,  which  otherwise  would  have 
too  little  outlook  upon  the  ideal  world.  Christianity  leads 
us  back  from  dispersion  to  concentration,  from  worldliness 
to  self-recollection.     It  restores  to  our  souls,  fevered  with  a 


144  AMI  EL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

thousand  sordid  desires,  nobleness,  gravity,  and  calm. 
Just  as  sleep  is  a  bath  of  refreshing  for  our  actual  life, 
so  religion  is  a  bath  of  refreshing  for  our  immortal  being. 
What  is  sacred  has  a  purifying  virtue ;  religious  emotion 
crowns  the  brow  with  an  aureole,  and  thrills  the  heart  Avith 
an  ineffable  joy. 

I  think  that  the  adversaries  of  religion  as  such  deceive 
themselves  as  to  the  needs  of  the  western  man,  and  that 
the  modern  world  will  lose  its  balance  as  soon  as  it  has 
passed  over  altogether  to  the  crude  doctrine  of  progress. 
We  have  always  need  of  the  infinite,  the  eternal,  the  abso- 
lute; and  since  science  contents  itself  with  what  is  relative, 
it  necessarily  leaves  a  void,  which  it  is  good  for  man  to  fill 
with  contemplation,  worship,  and  adoration.  "Religion," 
said  Bacon,  "  is  the  spice  which  is  meant  to  keep  life  from 
corruption,"  and  this  is  especially  true  to-day  of  religion 
taken  in  the  Platonist  and  oriental  sense.  A  capacity  for 
self-recollection — for  withdrawal  from  the  outward  to  the 
inward — is  in  fact  the  condition  of  all  noble  and  useful 
activity. 

This  return,  indeed,  to  what  is  serious,  divine,  and 
sacred,  is  becoming  more  and  more  difficult,  because  of  the 
growth  of  critical  anxiety  within  the  church  itself,  the 
increasing  worldliness  of  religious  preaching,  and  the  uni- 
versal agitation  and  disquiet  of  society.  But  such  a  return 
is  mibre  and  more  necessary.  Without  it  there  is  no  inner 
life,  and  the  inner  life  is  the  only  means  whereby  we  may 
oppose  a  profitable  resistance  to  circumstance.  If  the 
sailor  did  not  carry  with  him  his  own  temperature  he 
could  not  go  from  the  pole  to  the  equator,  and  remair 
himself  in  spite  of  all.  The  man  who  has  no  refuge  in 
himself,  who  lives,  so  to  speak,  in  his  front  rooms,  in  the 
outer  whirlwind  of  things  and  opinions,  is  not  properly  a 
personality  at  all;  he  is  not  distinct,  free,  original,  a  cause 
— in  a  word,  some  one.  He  is  one  of  a  crowd,  a  taxpayer, 
an  elector,  an  anonymity,  but  not  a  man.  He  helps  to 
make  up  the  mass — to  fill  np  the  number  of  human  con- 
sumers or  producers;   but  he  interests  nobody  but  the 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.  145 

economist  and  the  statistician,  who  take  the  heap  of  sand 
as  a  whole  into  consideration,  without  troubling  them- 
selves about  the  uninteresting  uniformity  of  the  individual 
grains.  The  crowd  counts  only  as  a  massive  elementary 
force — why?  because  its  constituent  parts  are  individually 
insignificant:  they  are  all  like  each  other,  and  we  add 
them  up  like  the  molecules  of  water  in  a  river,  gauging 
them  by  the  fathom  instead  of  appreciating  them  as  indi- 
viduals. Such  men  are  reckoned  and  weighed  merely  as 
so  many  bodies :  they  have  never  been  individualized  by 
conscience,  after  the  manner  of  souls. 

He  who  floats  with  the  current,  who  does  not  guide  him- 
self according  to  higher  principles,  who  has  no  ideal,  no 
convictions — such  a  man  is  a  mere  article  of  the  world's 
furniture — a  thing  moved,  instead  of  a  living  and  moving 
being — an  echo,  not  a  voice.  The  man  who  has  no  inner 
life  is  the  slave  of  his  surroundings,  as  the  barometer  is 
the  obedient  servant  of  the  air  at  rest,  and  the  weather- 
cock the  humble  servant  of  the  air  in  motion. 

January  21,  1866. — This  evening  after  supper  I  did  not 
know  whither  to  betake  my  solitary  self.  I  was  hungry 
for  conversation,  society,  exchange  of  ideas.     It  occurred 

to  me  to  go  and  see  our  friends,  the s;  they  were  at 

supper.  Afterward  we  went  into  the  salon :  mother  and 
daughter  sat  down  to  the  piano  and  sang  a  duet  by 
Boieldieu.  The  ivory  keys  of  the  old  grand  piano,  which 
the  mother  had  played  on  before  her  marriage,  and  which 
has  followed  and  translated  into  music  the  varying  fortunes 
of  the  family,  were  a  little  loose  and  jingling;  but  the 
poetry  of  the  past  sang  in  this  faithful  old  servant,  which 
had  been  a  friend  in  trouble,  a  companion  in  vigils,  and 
the  echo  of  a  lifetime  of  duty,  affection,  piety  and  virtue. 
I  was  more  moved  than  I  can  say.  It  was  like  a  scene  of 
Dickens,  and  I  felt  a  rush  of  sympathy,  untouched  either 
by  egotism  or  by  melancholy. 

Twenty-five  years!  It  seems  to  me  a  dream  as  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  and  I  can  scarcely  believe  my  eyes,  or  this 
inanimate  witness  to  so  many  lustres  passed  away.     How 


1 46  A  MI  EL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

strange  a  thing  to  have  livedo  and  to  feel  myself  so  far 
from  a  past  which  yet  is  so  present  to  me!  One  does  not 
know  whether  one  is  sleeping  or  waking.  Time  is  but  the 
:8pace  between  our  memories;  as  soon  as  we  cease  to  per- 
ceive this  space,  time  has  disappeared.  The  whole  life  of 
an  old  man  may  appear  to  him  no  longer  than  an  hour,  or 
less  still;  and  as  soon  as  time  is  but  a  moment  to  us,  we 
have  entered  upon  eternity.  Life  is  but  the  dream  of  a 
shadow;  I  felt  it  anew  this  evening  with  strange  intensity. 

January  29,  1866.  {Nine  o'clock  in  the  morning). — The 
gray  curtain  of  mist  has  spread  itself  again  over  the  town ; 
■everything  is  dark  and  dull.  The  bells  are  ringing  in  the 
distance  for  some  festival;  with  this  exception  everything 
is  calm  and  silent.  Except  for  the  crackling  of  the  fire, 
no  noise  disturbs  my  solitude  in  this  modest  home,  the 
shelter  of  my  thoughts  and  of  my  work,  where  the  man  of 
middle  age  carries  on  the  life  of  his  student-youth  without 
the  zest  of  youth,  and  the  sedentary  professor  repeats  day 
by  day  the  habits  which  he  formed  as  a  traveler. 

What  is  it  which  makes  the  charm  of  this  existence  out- 
wardly so  barren  and  empty?  Liberty!  What  does  the 
absence  of  comfort  and  of  all  else  that  is  wanting  to  these 
rooms  matter  to  me?  These  things  are  indifferent  to  me. 
I  find  under  this  roof  light,  quiet,  shelter.  I  am  near  to 
a  sister  and  her  children,  whom  I  love ;  my  material  life  is 

assured — that  ought  to  be  enough  for  a  bachelor 

Am  I  not,  besides,  a  creature  of  habit?  more  attached  to 
the  ennuis  I  know,  than  in  love  with  pleasures  unknown 
to  me.  I  am,  then,  free  and  not  unhappy.  Then  I  am 
well  off  here,  and  I  should  be  ungrateful  to  complain. 
Nor  do  L  It  is  only  the  heart  which  sighs  and  seeks  for 
something  more  and  better.  The  heart  is  an  insatiable 
glutton,  as  we  all  know — and  for  the  rest,  who  is  without 
yearnings?  It  is  our  destiny  here  below.  Only  some  go 
through  torments  and  troubles  in  order  to  satisfy  them- 
selves, and  all  without  success;  others  foresee  the  inevi- 
table result,  and  by  a  timely  resignation  save  themselves  a 
barren  and  fruitless  effort.     Since  we  cannot  be  happy, 


A MIEL'8  JO  UBNAL.  147 

why  give  ourselves  so  much  trouble?  It  is  best  to  limit 
one's  self  to  what  is  strictly  necessary,  to  live  austerely 
and  by  rule,  to  content  one's  self  with  a  little,  and  to 
attach  no  value  to  anything  but  peace  of  conscience  and 
a  sense  of  duty  done. 

It  is  true  that  this  itself  is  no  small  ambition,  and  that 
it  only  lands  us  in  another  impossibility.  No — the  sim- 
plest course  is  to  submit  one's  self  wholly  and  altogether 
to  God.  Everything  else,  as  saith  the  preacher,  is  but 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 

It  is  a  long  while  now  since  this  has  been  plain  to  me, 
and  since  this  religious  renunciation  has  been  sweet  and 
familiar  to  me.  It  is  the  outward  distractions  of  life,  the 
examples  of  the  world,  and  the  irresistible  influence  exerted 
upon  us  by  the  current  of  things  which  make  us  forget 
the  wisdom  we  have  acquired  and  the  principles  we  have 
adopted.  That  is  why  life  is  such  weariness!  This 
eternal  beginning  over  again  is  tedious,  even  to  repulsion. 
It  would  be  so  good  to  go  to  sleep  when  we  have  gathered 
the  fruit  of  experience,*  when  we  are  no  longer  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  supreme  will,  Avhen  we  have  broken  loose  from 
self,  when  we  are  at  peace  with  all  men.  Instead  of  this, 
the  old  round  of  temptations,  disputes,  enmiis,  and  for- 
gettings,  has  to  be  faced  again  and  again,  and  we  fall  back 
into  prose,  into  commonness,  into  vulgarity.  How  melan- 
choly, how  humiliating!  The  poets  are  wise  in  withdraw- 
ing their  heroes  more  quickly  from  the  strife,  and  in  not 
dragging  them  after  victory  along  the  common  rut  of 
barren  days.  "  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young,"  said  the 
proverb  of  antiquity. 

Yes,  but  it  is  our  secret  self-love  which  is  set  upon  thic 
favor  from  on  high;  such  may  be  our,  desire,  but  such  is 
not  the  will  of  God.  We  are,  to  be  exercised,  humbled, 
tried,  and  tormented  to  the  end.  It  is  our  patience  which 
is  the  touchstone  of  our  virtue.  To  bear  with  life  even 
when  illusion  and  hope  are  gone ;  to  accept  this  position 
of  perpetual  war,  while  at  the  same  time  loving  only  peace; 
to  stay  patiently  in  the  world,  even  when  it  repels  us  as  a 


148  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

place  of  low  company,  and  seems  to  ns  a  mere  arena  of  bad 
passions;  to  remain  faithful  to  one's  own  faith  without 
breaking  with  the  followers  of  the  false  gods;  to  make  no 
attempt  to  escape  from  the  human  hospital,  long-suffering 
and  patient  as  Job  upon  his  dung  hill — this  is  duty. 
When  life  ceases  to  be  a  promise  it  does  not  cease  to  be  a 
task ;  its  true  name  even  is  trial. 

April  2,  1866.  (Mornex). — The  snow  is  melting  and  a 
damp  fog  is  spread  over  everything.  The  asphalt  gallery 
which  runs  along  the  salon  is  a  sheet  of  quivering  water 
starred  incessantly  by  the  hurrying  drops  falling  from  the 
sky.  It  seems  as  if  one  could  touch  the  horizon  with  one's 
hand,  and  the  miles  of  country  which  were  yesterday 
visible  are  all  hidden  under  a  thick  gray  curtain. 

This  imprisonment  transports  me  to  Shetland,  to  Spitz- 
bergen,  to  Norway,  to  the  Ossianic  countries  jof  mist, 
where  man,  thrown  back  upon  himself,  feels  his  heart  beat 
more  quickly  and  his  thought  expand  more  freely — so  long, 
at  least,  as  he  is  not  frozen  and  congealed  by  cold.  Fog 
has  certainly  a  poetry  of  its  own — a  grace,  a  dreamy 
charm.  It  does  for  the  daylight  what  a  lamp  does  for  us 
at  night;  it  turns  the  mind  toward  meditation;  it  throws 
the  soul  back  on  itself.  The  sun,  as  it  were,  sheds  us 
abroad  in  nature,  scatters  and  disperses  us;  mist  draws  us 
together  and  concentrates  us — it  is  cordial,  homely,  charged 
with  feeling.  The  poetry  of  the  sun  has  something  of  the 
epic  in  it;  that  of  fog  and  mist  is  elegaic  and  religious. 
Pantheism  is  the  child  of  light;  mist  engenders  faith  in 
near  protectors.  When  the  great  world  is  shut  off  from 
ns,  the  house  becomes  itself  a  small  universe.  Shronded 
in  perpetual  mist,  men  love  each  other  better;  for  the  only 
reality  then  is  the  family,  and,  within  the  family,  the 
heart;  and  the  greatest  thoughts  come  from  the  heart — so 
says  the  moralist. 

"April  6,  1866.— The  novel  by  Miss  Mulock,  "John 
Halifax,  Gentleman,"  is  a  bolder  book  than  it  seems,  for 
it  attacks  in  the  English  way  the  social  problem  of  equality. 
And  the  solution  reached  is  that  every  one  may  become  a 


A  MIEL'8  JO  URN  A  L.  149 

gentleman,  even  though  he  may  be  born  in  the  gutter.  In 
its  way  the  story  protests  against  conventional  superiorities, 
and  shows  that  true  nobility  consists  in  character,  in  per- 
sonal merit,  in  moral  distinction,  in  elevation  of  feeling 
and  of  language,  in  dignity  of  life,  and  in  self-respect. 
This  is  better  than  Jacobinism,  and  the  opposite  of  the 
mere  brutal  passion  for  equality.  Instead  of  dragging 
everybody  down,  the  author  simply  proclaims  the  right  of 
every  one  to  rise.  A  man  may  be  born  rich  and  noble — he 
is  not  born  a  gentleman.  This  word  is  the  Shibboleth  of 
England;  it  divides  her  into  two  halves,  and  civilized 
society  into  two  castes.  Among  gentlemen — courtesy, 
equality,  and  politeness;  toward  those  below — contempt, 
disdain,  coldness  and  indifference.  It  is  the  old  separation 
between  the  ingenui  and  all  others;  between  the  kXEvfiepot 
and  the  /Sdvavdoi,  the  continuation  of  the  feudal  division 
between  the  gentry  and  the  roturiers. 

What,  then,  is  a  gentleman?  Apparently  he  is  the  free 
man,  the  man  who  is  stronger  than  things,and  believes  in 
personality  as  superior  to  all  the  accessory  attributes  of 
fortune,  such  as  rank  and  power,  and  as  constituting  what 
is  essential,  real,  and  intrinsically  valuable  in  the  indi- 
vidual. Tell  me  what  you  are,  and  I  will  tell  you  what 
you  are  worth.  "God  and  my  Eight;"  there  is  the  only 
motto  he  believes  in.  Such  an  ideal  is  happily  opposed  to 
that  vulgar  ideal  which  is  equally  English,  the  ideal  of 
wealth,  with  its  formula,  ^'  Hoio  much  is  he  worth?  "  In  a 
country  where  poverty  is  a  crime,  it  is  good  to  be  able  to 
say  that  a  nabob  need  not  as  such  be  a  gentleman.  The 
mercantile  ideal  and  the  chivalrous  ideal  counterbalance 
each  other;  and  if  the  one  produces  the  ugliness  of 
English  society  and  its  brutal  side,  the  other  serves  as  a 
compensation. 

The  gentleman,  then,  is  the  man  who  is  master  of  him- 
self, who  respects  himself,  and  makes  others  respect  him. 
The  essence  of  gentlemanliness  is  self-rule,  the  sovereignty 
of  the  soul.  It  means  a  character  which  possesses  itself, 
»   force  which  governs  itself,  a  liberty  which  affirms  and 


1 50  AMIEV8  JO  URNAL. 

regulates  itself,  according  to  the  type  of  true  dignity. 
Such  an  ideal  is  closely  akin  to  the  Roman  type  of  dignitas 
cum  auctoritate.  It  is  more  moral  than  intellectual,  and 
is  particularly  suited  to  England,  which  is  pre-eminently 
the  country  of  will.  But  from  self-respect  a  thousand 
other  things  are  derived — such  as  the  care  of  a  man's  per- 
son, of  his  language,  of  his  manners;  watchfulness  over  his 
body  and  over  his  soul ;  dominion  over  his  instincts  and 
his  passions;  the  effort  to  be  self-sufficient;  the  pride  which 
will  accept  no  favor;  carefulness  not  to  expose  himself  to 
any  humiliation  or  mortification,  and  to  maintain  himself 
independent  of  any  human  caprice;  the  constant  protection 
of  his  honor  and  of  his  self-respect.  Such  a  condition  of 
sovereignty,  insomuch  as  it  is  only  easy  to  the  man  who  is 
well-born,  well-bred,  and  rich,  Avas  naturally  long  identi- 
fied with  birth,  rank,  and  above  all  with  property.  The 
idea  "gentleman"  is,  then,  derived  from  feudality;  it  is, 
as  it  were,  a  milder  version  of  the  seigneur. 

In  order  to  lay  himself  open  to  no  reproach,  a  gentleman 
will  keep  himself  irreproachable;  in  order  to  be  treated 
with  consideration,  he  will  always  be  careful  himself  to 
observe  distances,  to  apportion  respect,  and  to  observe  all 
the  gradations  of  conventional  politeness,  according  to 
rank,  age,  and  situation.  Hence  it  follows  that  he  will  be 
imperturbably  cautious  in  the  presence  of  a  stranger,  whose 
name  and  worth  are  unknown  to  him,  and  to  whom  he 
might  perhaps  show  too  much  or  too  little  courtesy.  He 
ignores  and  avoids  him;  if  he  is  approached,  he  turns 
away,  if  he  is  addressed,  he  answers  shortly  and  with 
hauteur.  His  politeness  is  not  human  and  general,  but 
individual  and  relative  to  persons.  This  is  why  every 
Englishman  contains  two  different  men — one  turned  toward 
the  world,  and  another.  The  first,  the  outer  man,  is  a 
citadel,  a  cold  and  angular  wall;  the  other,  the  inner  man, 
is  a  sensible,  affectionate,  cordial,  and  loving  creature. 
Such  a  type  is  only  formed  in  a  moral  climate  full  of 
icicles,  where,  in  the  face  of  an  indifferent  world,  the 
hearth  alone  is  hospitable 


AMIED a  JOURNAL.  151 

So  that  an  analysis  of  the  national  type  of  gentlemen 
reveals  to  us  the  nature  and  the  history  of  the  nation,  as 
the  fruit  reveals  the  tree. 

April  7,  1866. — If  philosophy  is  the  art  of  understanding, 
it  is  evident  that  it  must  begin  by  saturating  itself  with 
facts  and  realities,  and  that  premature  abstraction  kills  it, 
just  as  the  abuse  of  fasting  destroys  the  body  at  the  age  of 
growth.  Besides,  we  only  understand  that  which  is 
already  within  us.  To  understand  is  to  possess  the  thing 
understood,  first  by  sympathy  and  then  by  intelligence. 
Instead,  then,  of  first  dismembering  and  dissecting  the 
object  to  be  conceived,  we  should  begin  by  laying  hold  of 
it  in  its  ensemble,  then  in  its  formation,  last  of  all  in  its 
parts.  The  procedure  is  the  same,whether  we  study  a  watch 
or  a  plant,  a  work  of  art  or  a  character.  We  must  study, 
respect,  and  question  what  we  want  to  know,  instead  of 
massacring  it.  We  must  assimilate  ourselves  to  things  and 
surrender  ourselves  to  them ;  we  must  open  our  minds  with 
docility  to  their  influence,  and  steep  ourselves  in  their 
spirit  and  their  distinctive  form,  before  we  offer  violence  to 
them  by  dissecting  them. 

April  14,  1866. — Panic,  confusion,  sauve  qui  pent  on 
the  Bourse  at  Paris.  In  our  epoch  of  individualism,  and 
of  "each  man  for  himself  and  God  for  all,"  the  movements 
of  the  public  funds  are  all  that  now  represent  to  us  the 
beat  of  the  common  heart.  The  solidarity  of  interests 
which  they  imply  counterbalances  the  separateness  of 
modern  affections,  and  the  obligatory  sympathy  they  im- 
pose upon  us  recalls  to  one  a  little  the  patriotism  which 
bore  the  forced  taxes  of  old  days.  We  feel  ourselves 
bound  up  with  and  compromised  in  all  the  world's  affairs, 
and  we  must  interest  ourselves  wnetner  we  will  or  no  in 
the  terrible  machine  whose  wheels  may  crush  us  at  any 
moment.  Credit  produces  a  restless  society,  trembling 
perpetually  for  the  security  of  its  artificial  basis.  Some- 
times society  may  forget  for  awhile  that  it  is  dancing 
upon  a  volcano,  but  the  least  rumor  of  war  recalls  the  fact 
to  it  inexorably.     Card-houses  are  easily  ruined. 


152  A  MIEL'8  JO  URNAL. 

All  this  anxiety  is  intolerable  to  those  humoie  Jttie 
investors  who,  having  no  wish  to  be  rich,  ask  only  to  be 
able  to  go  about  their  work  in  peace.  But  no;  tyrant  that 
it  is,  the  world  cries  to  us,  "Peace,  peace — there  is  no 
peace :  whether  you  will  or  no  you  shall  suffer  and  tremble 
"with  me!"  To  accept  humanity,  as  one  does  nature,  and 
to  resign  one's  self  to  the  will  of  an  individual,  as  one  does 
to  destiny,  is  not  easy.  We  bow  to  the  government  of 
God,  but  we  turn  against  the  despot.  No  man  likes  to 
share  in  the  shipwreck  of  a  vessel  in  which  he  has  been 
embarked  by  violence,  and  which  has  been  steered  con- 
trary to  his  wish  and  his  opinion.  And  yet  such  is  perpet- 
ually the  ctise  in  life.  We  all  of  us  pay  for  the  faults  of 
the  few. 

Human  solidarity  is  a  fact  more  evident  and  more  cer- 
tain than  personal  responsibility,  and  even  than  individual 
liberty.  Our  dependence  has  it  over  our  independence; 
for  we  are  only  independent  in  will  and  desire,  while  we 
are  dependent  upon  our  health,  upon  nature  and  society; 
in  short,  upon  everything  in  us  and  without  us.  Our 
liberty  is  confined  to  one  single  point.  We  may  protest 
against  all  these  oppressive  and  fatal  powers;  we  may  say, 
Crush  me — you  will  never  win  my  consent !  We  may,  by 
an  exercise  of  will,  throw  ourselves  into  opposition  to 
necessity,  and  refuse  it  homage  and  obedience.  In  that 
consists  our  moral  liberty.  But  except  for  that,  we  belong, 
body  and  goods,  to  the  world.  We  are  its  playthings,  as 
the  dust  is  the  plaything  of  the  wind,  or  the  dead  leaf  of 
the  floods.  God  at  least  respects  our  dignity,  but  the 
world  rolls  us  contemptuously  along  in  its  merciless  waves. 
In  order  to  make  it  plain  that  we  are  its  thing  and  its 
chattel. 

All  theories  of  the  nullity  of  the  individual,  all  pantheis- 
tic and  materialist  conceptions,  are  now  but  so  much 
forcing  of  an  open  door,  so  much  slaying  of  the  slain.  As 
«oon  as  we  cease  to  glorify  this  imperceptible  point  of  con- 
science, and  to  uphold  the  value  of  it,  the  individual  be- 
somes  naturally  a  mere  atom  in  the  human  mass,  which  is 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  153 

but  an  atom  in  the  planetary  mass,  whicli  is  a  mere 
nothing  in  the  universe.  The  individual  is  then  but  a 
nothing  of  the  third  power,  with  a  capacity  for  measuring 
its  nothingness !  Thought  leads  to  resignation.  Self-doubt 
leads  to  passivity,  and  passivity  to  servitude.  From  this  a 
voluntary  submission  is  the  only  escape,  that  is  to  say,  a 
state  of  dependence  religiously  accepted,  a  vindication  ol 
ourselves  as  free  beings,  bowed  before  duty  only.  Duty 
thus  becomes  our  principle  of  action,  our  source  of  energy, 
the  guarantee  of  our  partial  independence  of  the  world, 
the  condition  of  our  dignity,  the  sign  of  our  nobility.  The 
world  can  neither  make  me  will  nor  make  me  will  my 
duty;  here  I  am  my  own  and  only  master,  and  treat  with 
it  as  sovereign  with  sovereign.  It  holds  my  body  in  its 
clutches;  but  my  soul  escapes  and  braves  it.  My  thought 
and  my  love,  my  faith  and  my  hope,  are  beyond  its  reach. 
My  true  being,  the  essence  of  my  nature,  myself,  remain 
inviolate  and  inaccessible  to  the  world's  attacks.  In  this 
respect  we  are  greater  than  the  universe,  which  has  mass 
and  not  will;  we  become  once  more  independent  even  in 
relation  to  the  human  mass, which  also  can  destroy  nothing 
more  than  our  happiness,  just  as  the  mass  of  the  universe 
can  destroy  nothing  more  than  our  body.  Submission, 
then,  is  not  defeat;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  strength. 

April  28,  1866. — I  have  just  read  the  proc^s-verbal  of 
the  Conference  of  Pastors  held  on  the  15th  and  16th  of 
April  at  Paris.  The  question  of  the  supernatural  has  split 
the  church  of  France  in  two.  The  liberals  insist  upon 
individual  right;  the  orthodox  upon  the  notion  of  a 
church.  And  it  is  true  indeed  that  a  church  is  an  affirma- 
tion, that  it  subsists  by  the  positive  element  in  it,  by  defi- 
nite belief;  the  pure  critical  element  dissolves  it.  Protes- 
tantism is  a  combination  of  two  factors — the  authority  of 
the  Scriptures  and  free  inquiry;  as  soon  as  one  of  these 
factors  is  threatened  or  disappears.  Protestantism  dis- 
appears; a  new  form  of  Christianity  succeeds  it,  as,  for 
example,  the  church  of  the  Brothers  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  or 
that  of  Christian  Theism.     As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  see 


154  AMfKL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

nothing  objectionable  in  such  a  result,  but  I  think  the 
friends  of  the  Protestant  church  are  logical  in  their 
refusal  to  abandon  the  apostle's  creed,  and  the  individual- 
ists are  illogical  in  imagining  that  they  can  keep  Protes- 
tantism and  do  away  with  authority. 

It  is  a  question  of  method  which  separates  the  two 
camps.  I  am  fundamentally  separated  from  both.  As  1 
understand  it,  Christianity  is  above  all  religions,  and 
religion  is  not  a  method,  it  is  a  life,  a  higher  and  super- 
natural life,  mystical  in  its  root  and  practical  in  its  fruits, 
a  communion  with  God,  a  calm  and  deep  enthusiasm,  a 
love  which  radiates,  a  force  which  acts,  a  happiness  which 
overflows.  Religion,  in  short,  is  a  state  of  the  soul. 
These  quarrels  as  to  method  have  their  value,  but  it  is  a 
secondary  value;  they  will  never  console  a  heart  or  edify 
a  conscience.  This  is  why  I  feel  so  little  interest  in  theso 
ecclesiastical  struggles.  Whether  the  one  party  or  the 
other  gain  the  majority  and  the  victory,  what  is  essen- 
tial is  in  no  way  profited,  for  dogma,  criticism,  the  church, 
are  not  religion ;  and  it  is  religion,  the  sense  of  a  divine 
life,  which  matters.  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  his  righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added 
unto  you."  The  most  holy  is  the  most  Christian;  this 
will  always  be  the  criterion  which  is  least  deceptive.  "  By 
this  ye  shalj  know  my  disciples,  if  they  have  love  one  to 
another. " 

As  is  the  worth  of  the  individual,  so  is  the  worth  of  his 
religion.  Popular  instinct  and  philosophic  reason  are  at 
one  on  this  point.  Be  good  and  pious,  patient  and  heroic, 
faithful  and  devoted,  humble  and  charitable;  the  cate- 
chism which  has  taught  you  these  things  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  blame.  By  religion  we  live  in  God;  but  all  these 
quarrels  lead  to  nothing  but  life  with  men  or  with  cassocks. 
There  is  therefore  no  equivalence  between  the  two  points 
of  view. 

Perfection  as  an  end — a  noble  example  for  sustenance  on 
the  way — the  divine  proved  by  its  own  excellence,  is  not 
this  the  whole  of  Christianity?  God  manifest  in  all  men, 
is  '.:ot  this  its  true  goal  and  consummation? 


AMIEUa  journal:  155 

September  20,  1866. — My  old  friends  are,  I  am  afraid, 
"disappointed  in  me ;  they  think  that  I  do  nothing,  that  I 
iave  deceived  their  expectations  and  their  hopes.  I,  too, 
;am  disappointed.  All  that  would  restore  my  self-respect 
and  give  me  a  right  to  be  proud  of  myself,  seems  to  me 
unattainable  and  impossible,  and  I  fall  back  upon  triviali- 
ties, gay  talk,  distractions.  I  am  always  equally  lacking 
in  hope,  in  faith,  in  resolution.  The  only  difference  is 
that  my  weakness  takes  sometimes  the  form  of  despairing 
nelancholy  and  sometimes  that  of  a  cheerful  quietism. 
And  yet  I  read,  I  talk,  I  teach,  I  write,  but  to  no  effect; 
it  is  as  though  I  were  walking  in  my  sleep.  The  Buddhist 
tendency  in  me  blunts  the  faculty  of  free  self-government 
and  weakens  the  power  of  action;  self-distrust  kills  all 
desire,  and  reduces  me  again  and  again  to  a  fundamental 
skepticism.  I  care  for  nothing  but  the  serious  and  the 
Teal,  and  I  can  take  neither  myself  nor  my  circumstances 
seriously.  I  hold  my  own  personality,  my  own  aptitudes, 
my  own  aspirations,  too  cheap.  I  am  forever  making 
light  of  myself  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  beautiful  and  ad- 
Tnirable.  In  a  word,  I  bear  within  me  a  perpetual  self- 
detractor,  and  this  is  what  takes  all  spring  out  of  my  life. 
I  have  been  passing  the  evening  with  Charles  Heim,  who, 
in  his  sincerity,  has  never  paid  me  any  literary  compli- 
ment. As  I  love  and  respect  him,  he  is  forgiven.  Self- 
love  has  nothing  to  do  with  it — and  yet  it  would  be  sweet 
to  be  praised  by  so  upright  a  friend !  It  is  depressing  to 
feel  one's  self  silently  disapproved  of;  I  will  try  to  satisfy 
him,  and  to  think  of  a  book  which  may  please  both  him 
and  Scherer. 

October  6,  1866. — I  have  just  picked  up  on  the  stairs  a 
little  yellowish  cat,  ugly  and  pitiable.  Now,  curled  up  in 
a  chair  at  my  side,  he  seems  perfectly  happy,  and  as  if  he 
wanted  nothing  more.  Far  from  being  wild,  nothing  will 
induce  him  to  leave  me,  and  he  has  followed  me  from  room 
to  room  all  day.  I  have  nothing  at  all  that  is  eatable  in 
the  house,  but  what  I  have  I  give  him — that  is  to  say,  a 
look  and  a  caress — and  that  seems  to  be  enough  for  him. 


l.'ie  AMIEU 8  JOURNAL. 

at  least  for  the  moment.  Small  animals,  small  children,, 
young  lives — they  are  all  the  same  as  far  as  the  need  oi 
protection  and  of  gentleness  is  concerned.  .  .  .  People 
have  sometimes  said  to  me  that  weak  and  feeble  creatures 
are  happy  with  me.  Perhaps  such  a  fact  has  to  do  with 
some  special  gift  or  beneficent  force  which  flows  from  one 
when  one  is  in  the  sympathetic  state.  I  have  often  a  direct 
perception  of  such  a  force;  but  I  am  no  ways  proud  of  it, 
nor  do  I  look  upon  it  as  anything  belonging  to  me,  but 
simply  as  a  natural  gift.  It  seems  to  me  sometimes  as 
though  I  could  woo  the  birds  to  build  in  my  beard  as  they 
do  in  the  headgear  of  some  cathedral  saint !  After  all,  this 
is  the  natural  state  and  the  true  relation  of  man  toward  all 
inferior  creatures.  If  man  was  what  he  ought  to  be  he 
would  be  adored  by  the  animals,  of  whom  he  is  too  often 
the  capricious  and  sanguinary  tyrant.  The  legend  of  Saint 
Francis  of  Assisi  is  not  so  legendary  as  we  think ;  and  it  is 
not  so  certain  that  it  was  the  wild  beasts  who  attacked 
man  first.  .  .  .  But  to  exaggerate  nothing,  let  us 
leave  on  one  side  the  beasts  of  prey,  the  carnivora,  and 
those  that  live  by  rapine  and  slaughter.  How  many  other 
species  are  there,  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  who 
ask  peace  from  us  and  with  whom  we  persist  in  waging  a 
brutal  war?  Our  race  is  by  far  the  most  destructive,  the 
most  hurtful,  and  the  most  formidable,  of  all  the  species 
of  the  planet.  It  has  even  invented  for  its  own  use  the 
right  of  the  strongest — a  divine  right  which  quiets  its 
conscience  in  the  face  of  the  conquered  and  the  oppressed; 
we  have  outlawed  all  that  lives  except  ourselves.  Revolt- 
ing and  manifest  abuse;  notorious  and  contemptible  breach 
of  the  law  of  justice!  The  bad  faith  and  hypocrisy  of  it 
are  renewed  on  a  small  scale  by  all  successful  usurpers. 
We  are  always  making  God  our  accomplice,  that  so  we 
may  legalize  our  own  iniquities.  Every  successful  mas- 
sacre is  consecrated  by  a  Te  Deum,  and  the  clergy  have 
never  been  wanting  in  benedictions  for  any  victorious 
enormity.  So  that  what,  in  the  beginning,  was  the  rela- 
tion of  man  to  the  animal  becomes  that  of  people  to 
people  and  man  to  man. 


*      AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  15? 

If  so,  we  have  before  us  an  expiation  too  seldom  noticed 
but  altogether  just.  All  crime  must  be  expiated,  and 
slavery  is  the  repetition  among  men  of  the  sufferings 
brutally  imposed  by  man  upon  other  living  beings;  it  is 
the  theory  bearing  its  fruits.  The  right  of  man  over  the 
animal  seems  to  me  to  cease  with  the  need  of  defense  and 
of  subsistence.  So  that  all  unnecesasry  murder  and  tor- 
ture are  cowardice  and  even  crime.  The  animal  renders  a 
service  of  utility;  man  in  return  owes  it  a  meed  of  protec- 
tion and  of  kindness.  In  a  word,  the  animal  has  claims  on 
man,  and  the  man  has  duties  to  the  animal.  Buddhism,  no 
doubt,  exaggerates  this  truth,  but  the  Westerns  leave  it  out 
of  count  altogether.  A  day  will  come,  however,  when  our 
standard  will  be  higher,  our  humanity  more  exacting, 
than  it  is  to-day.  Homo  homini  lupus,  said  Hobbes:  the 
time  will  come  when  man  will  be  humane  even  for  the 
wolf — homo  lupo  homo. 

December  30,  1866. — Skepticism  pure  and  simple  as  the 
only  safeguard  of  intellectual  independence — such  is  the 
point  of  view  of  almost  all  our  young  men  of  talent. 
Absolute  freedom  from  credulity  seems  to  them  the  glory 
of  man.  My  impression  has  always  been  that  this  exces- 
sive detachment  of  the  individual  from  all  received  preju- 
dices and  opinions  in  reality  does  the  work  of  tyranny. 
This  evening,  in  listening  to  the  conversation  of  some  of 
our  most  cultivated  men,  I  thought  of  the  Kenaissance,  of 
the  Ptolemies,  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  of  all  those 
times  in  which  the  exultant  anarchy  of  the  intellect  has 
had  despotic  government  for  its  correlative,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  England,  of  Holland,  of  the  United  States, 
countries  in  which  political  liberty  is  bought  at  the  price 
of  necessary  prejudices  and  a  priori  opinions. 

That  society  may  hold  together  at  all,  we  must  have  a 
principle  of  cohesion — that  is  to  say,  a  common  belief, 
principles  recognized  and  undisputed,  a  series  of  practical 
axioms  and  institutions  which  are  not  at  the  mercy  of 
every  caprice  of  public  opinion.  By  treating  everything  as 
if  it   were  an    open  question,   we    endanger  everything. 


158  A  MILL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

Doubt  is  the  accomplice  of  tyranny.  "  If  a  people  will  not 
believe  it  must  obey,"  said  Tocqueville.  All  liberty  im- 
plies dependence,  and  has  its  conditions ;  this  is  what  nega- 
tive and  quarrelsome  minds  are  apt  to  forget.  They  think 
they  can  do  away  with  religion ;  they  do  not  know  that 
religion  is  indestructible,  and  that  the  question  is  simply, 
Which  will  you  have?  Voltaire  plays  the  game  of  Loyola, 
and  vice  versd.  Between  these  two  there  is  no  peace,  nor 
can  there  be  any  for  the  society  which  has  once  thrown 
itself  into  the  dilemma.  The  only  solution  lies  in  a  free 
religion,  a  religion  of  free  choice  and  free  adhesion. 

December  23,  1866. — It  is  raining  over  the  whole  sky — ■ 
as  far  at  least  as  I  can  see  from  my  high  point  of  observa- 
tion. All  is  gray  from  the  Saleve  to  the  Jura,  and  from 
the  pavement  to  the  clouds;  everything  that  one  sees  or 
touches  is  gray;  color,  life,  and  gayety  are  dead — each 
living  thing  seems  to  lie  hidden  in  its  own  particular  shell. 
What  are  the  birds  doing  in  such  weather  as  this?  We 
who  have  food  and  shelter,  fire  on  the  hearth,  books  around 
us,  portfolios  of  engravings  close  at  hand,  a  nestful  of 
dreams  in  the  heart,  and  a  whirlwind  of  thoughts  ready  to 
rise  from  the  ink-bottle — we  find  nature  ugly  and  triste^ 
and  turn  away  our  eyes  from  it;  but  you,  poor  sparrows, 
what  can  you  be  doing?  Bearing  and  hoping  and  wait- 
ing?   After  all,  is  not  this  the  task  of  each  one  of  us? 

I  have  just  been  reading  over  a  volume  of  this  Journal, 
and  feel  a  little  ashamed  of  the  languid  complaining  tone 
of  so  much  of  it.  These  pages  reproduce  me  very  imper- 
fectly, and  there  are  many  things  in  me  of  which  I  find 
no  trace  in  them.  I  suppose  it  is  because,  in  the  first 
place,  sadness  takes  up  the  pen  more  readily  than  joy; 
and  in  the  next,  because  I  depend  so  much  upon  surround- 
ing circumstances.  When  there  is  no  call  upon  me,  and 
nothing  to  put  me  to  the  test,  I  fall  back  into  melancholy ; 
and  so  the  practical  man,  the  cheerful  man,  the  literary 
man,  does  not  appear  in  these  pages.  The  portrait  is  lack- 
ing in  proportion  and  breadth ;  it  is  one-sided,  and  want? 
a  center;  it  has,  as  it  were,  been  painted  from  too  near. 


A  MIEUS  JO  URN  A  L.  159 

The  true  reason  why  we  know  ourselves  so  little  lies  in 
the  difficulty  we  find  in  standing  at  a  proper  distance  from 
ourselves,  in  taking  up  the  right  point  of  view,  so  that 
the  details  may  help  rather  than  hide  the  general  effect. 
We  must  learn  to  look  at  ourselves  socially  and  historically 
if  we  wish  to  have  an  exact  idea  of  our  relative  worth,  and 
to  look  at  our  life  as  a  whole,  or  at  least  as  one  complete 
period  of  life,  if  we  wish  to  know  what  we  are  and  what 
we  are  not.  The  ant  which  crawls  to  and  fro  over  a  face, 
the  fly  perched  upon  the  forehead  of  a  maiden,  touch  them 
indeed,  but  do  not  see  them,  for  they  never  embrace  the 
whole  at  a  glance. 

Is  it  wonderful  that  misunderstandings  should  play  so 
great  a  part  in  the  world,  when  one  sees  how  difficult  it  is 
to  produce  a  faithful  portrait  of  a  person  whom  one  has 
been  studying  for  more  than  twenty  years?  Still,  the 
effort  has  not  been  altogether  lost;  its  reward  has  been  the 
sharpening  of  one's  perceptions  of  the  outer  world.  If  I 
have  any  special  power  of  appreciating  different  shades  of 
mind,  I  owe  it  no  doubt  to  the  analysis  I  have  so  per- 
petually and  unsuccessfully  practiced  on  myself.  In  fact, 
I  have  always  regarded  myself  as  matter  for  study,  and 
what  has  interested  me  most  in  myself  has  been  the  pleas- 
ure of  having  under  my  hand  a  man,  a  person,  in  whom, 
as  an  authentic  specimen  of  human  nature,  I  could  follow, 
without  importunity  or  indiscretion,  all  the  metamor- 
phoses, the  secret  thoughts,  the  heart-beats,  and  the 
temptations  of  humanity.  My  attention  has  been  drawn 
to  myself  impersonally  and  philosophically.  One  uses  what 
one  has,  and  one  must  shape  one's  arrow  out  of  one's  own 
wood. 

To  arrive  at  a  faithful  portrait,  succession  must  be  con- 
Terted  into  simultaneousness,  plurality  into  unity,  and  all 
the  changing  phenomena  must  be  traced  back  to  their 
essence.  There  are  ten  men  in  me,  according  to  time, 
place,  surrounding,  and  occasion;  and  in  their  restless 
diversity  I  am  forever  escaping  myself.  Therefore,  what- 
ever I  may  reveal  of  my  past,  of  my  Journal,  or  of  myself, 


160  AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL. 

is  of  no  use  to  him  who  is  withorit  the  poetic  intuition,  and 
cannot  recompose  me  as  a  whole,  with  or  in  spite  of  the 
elements  which  I  confide  to  hira. 

I  feel  myself  a  chameleon,  a  kaleidoscope,  a  Proteus; 
changeable  in  every  way,  open  to  every  kind  of  polariza- 
tion ;  fluid,  virtual,  and  therefore  latent — latent  even  in 
manifestation,  and  absent  even  in  presentation.  I  am  » 
spectator,  so  to  speak,  of  the  molecular  whirlwind  which 
men  call  individual  life;  I  am  conscious  of  an  incessant 
metamorphosis,  an  irresistible  movement  of  existence, 
which  is  going  on  within  me.  I  am  sensible  of  the  flight, 
the  revival,  the  modification,  of  all  the  atoms  of  my  being, 
all  the  particles  of  my  river,  all  the  radiations  of  my 
special  force. 

This  phenomenology  of  myself  serves  both  as  the  magic 
lantern  of  my  own  destiny,  and  as  a  window  opened  upon 
the  mystery  of  the  world.  I  am,  or  rather,  my  sensible 
consciousness  is  concentrated  upon  this  ideal  standing- 
point,  this  invisible  threshold,  as  it  were,  whence  one  hears 
the  impetuous  passage  of  time,  rushing  and  foaming  as  it 
flows  out  into  the  changeless  ocean  of  eternity.  After  all 
the  bewildering  distractions  of  life,  after  having  drowned 
myself  in  a  multiplicity  of  trifles  and  in  the  caprices  of 
this  fugitive  existence,  yet  without  ever  attaining  to  self- 
intoxication  or  self-delusion,  I  come  again  upon  the 
fathomless  abyss,  the  silent  and  melancholy  cavern  where 
dwell   ^^ Die  Mutter"'*   where  sleeps  that  which  neither 

*  '  'Die  Mutter  " — an  allusion  to  a  strange  and  enigmatical,  but  very 
effective  conception  in  "  Faust "  (Part  II.  Act  I.  Scene  v.)  Die  Mutter 
are  the  prototypes,  the  abstract  fonns,  the  generative  ideas,  of 
things.  "  Sie  sehn  dich  nicht,  denn  Schemen  sehn  sienur."  Goethe 
borrowed  the  term  from  a  passage  of  Plutarch's,  but  he  has  made 
the  idea  half  Platonic,  half  legendary.  Amiel,  however,  seems 
rather  to  have  in  his  mind  Faust's  speech  in  Scene  vii.  than  the 
speech  of  Mephistopheles  in  Scene  v: 

"  In  eurem  Namen,  Matter,  die  ihr  thront 
Im  Qranzenlosen,  ewig  einsam  wohnt, 
Und  doch  geselligi    Euer  haupt  umschwebeo 
Des  Lebens  Bilder.  regsam,  ohne  Leben. 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  161 

lives  nor  dies,  that  which  has  neither  movement,  nor 
change,  nor  extension,  nor  form,  and  which  lasts  when  all 
else  passes  away. 

"  Dans  I'eternel  azur  de  I'insondable  espace 
S'enveloppe  de  paix  notre  globe  agitee: 
Homme,  enveloppe  ainsi  tes  jours,  reve  qui  passe, 
Da  calme  firmament  de  ton  eternite." 

(H.  F.  Amiel,  PenseroBO.) 

Geneva,  January  11,  1867. 

"  Eheu  fugaces,  Postume,  Postume, 
Labuntur  anni.  ..." 

I  hear  the  drops  of  my  life  falling  distinctly  one  by  one 
into  the  devouring  abyss  of  eternity.  I  feel  my  days  flying 
before  the  pursuit  of  death.  All  that  remains  to  me  of 
weeks,  or  months,  or  years,  in  which  I  may  drink  in  the 
light  of  the  sun,  seems  to  me  no  more  than  a  single  night, 
a  summer  night,  which  scarcely  counts,  because  it  will  so 
soon  be  at  an  end. 

Death!  Silence!  Eternity!  What  mysteries,  what  names 
of  terror  to  the  being  who  longs  for  happiness,  immortality, 
perfection!  Where  shall  I  be  to-morrow — in  a  little  while 
— when  the  breath  of  life  has  forsaken  me?  Where  will 
those  be  whom  I  love  ?  Whither  are  we  all  going?  The 
eternal  problems  rise  before  us  in  their  implacable 
solemnity.  Mystery  on  all  sides  I  And  faith  the  only  star 
in  this  darkness  and  uncertainty  1 

No  matter ! — so  long  as  the  world  is  the  work  of  eternal 
goodness,  and  so  long  as  conscience  has  not  deceived  us. 
To  give  happiness  and  to  do  good,  there  is  our  only  law, 
our  anchor  of  salvation,  our  beacon  light,  our  reason  for 
existing.  All  religions  may  crumble  away;  so  long  as  this 
survives  we  have  still  an  ideal,  and  life  is  worth  living. 

Nothing  can  lessen  the  dignity  and  value  of  humanity 

Was  einmal  war,  in  allem  Glanz  und  Scbein, 
Es  regt  sicb  dort;  denn  es  will  ewig  sein. 
Und  ihr  vertheilt  es,  allgewaltige  Macbte, 
Zum  Zelt  des  Tages.  zum  Gewolb'  der  Nachte." 


IQ'Z  AMIEL'8  JOURNAL. 

80  long  as  the  religion  of  love,  of  unselfishness  and  devotion 
endures;  and  none  can  destroy  the  altars  of  this  faith  for 
us  so  long  as  we  feel  ourselves  still  capable  of  love. 

April  15, 1867.  {Seven  a.  m.). — Rain  storms  in  the  night 
— the  weather  is  showing  its  April  caprice.  From  the 
window  one  sees  a  gray  and  melancholy  sky,  and  roofs  glis- 
tering with  rain.  The  spring  is  at  its  work.  Yes,  and 
the  implacable  flight  of  time  is  driving  us  toward  the  grave. 
Well — each  has  his  turn ! 

"  AUez,  allez,  6  jeunes  filles, 
Caeillir  des  bleuets  dans  les  blesi " 

I  am  overpowered  with  melancholy,  languor,  lassitude. 
A  longing  for  the  last  great  sleep  has  taken  possession  of 
me,  combated,  however,  by  a  thirst  for  sacrifice — sacrifice 
heroic  and  long-sustained.  Are  not  both  simply  ways  of 
escape  from  one's  self?  "  Sleep,  or  self-surrender,  that  I 
may  die  to  self  I " — such  is  the  cry  of  the  heart.  Poor 
heart ! 

April  17,  1867. — Awake,  thou  that  sleepest,  and  rise 
from  the  dead. 

What  needs  perpetually  refreshing  and  renewing  in  me 
is  my  store  of  courage.  By  nature  I  am  so  easily  disgusted 
with  life,  I  fall  a  prey  so  readily  to  despair  and  pessimism. 

"  The  happy   man,    as  this  century  is  able  to  produce 

him,"  according  to  Madame ,  is  a  WeUmiide,  one  who 

keeps  a  brave  face  before  the  world,  and  distracts  himself 
as  best  he  can  from  dwelling  upon  the  thought  which  is 
hidden  at  his  heart — a  thought  which  has  in  it  the  sadness 
of  death — the  thought  of  the  irreparable.  The  outward 
peace  of  such  a  man  is  but  despair  well  masked ;  his  gayety 
is  the  carelessness  of  a  heart  which  has  lost  all  its  illusions, 
and  has  learned  to  acquiesce  in  an  indefinite  putting  off  of 
happiness.  His  wisdom  is  really  acclimatization  to  sacri- 
fice, his  gentleness  should  be  taken  to  mean  privation 
patiently  borne  rather  than  resignation.  In  a  word,  he 
submits  to  an  existence  in  which  he  f^els  no  joy,  and  he 
cannot  hide  from  himself  that  all  the  alleviations  with 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  163 

which  it  is  strewn  cannot  satisfy  the  soul.  The  thirst  for 
the  infinite  is  never  appeased.     God  is  wanting. 

To  win  true  peace,  a  man  needs  to  feel  himself  directed, 
pardoned,  and  sustained  by  a  supreme  power,  to  feel  him- 
self in  the  right  road,  at  the  point  where  God  would  have 
him  be — in  order  with  God  and  the  universe.  This  faith 
gives  strength  and  calm.  I  have  not  got  it.  All  that  is, 
seems  to  me  arbitrary  and  fortuitous.  It  may  as  well  not 
be,  as  be.  Nothing  in  my  own  circumstances  seems  to  me 
providential.  All  appears  to  me  left  to  my  own  responsi- 
bility, and  it  is  this  thought  which  disgusts  me  with  the 
government  of  my  own  life.  I  longed  to  give  myself  up 
wholly  to  some  great  love,  some  noble  end;  I  would  wil- 
lingly have  lived  and  died  for  the  ideal — that  is  to  say,  for 
a  holy  cause.  But  once  the  impossibility  of  this  made 
clear  to  me,  I  have  never  since  taken  a  serious  interest  in 
anything,  and  have,  as  it  were,  but  amused  myself  with 
a  destiny  of  which  I  was  no  longer  the  dupe. 

Sybarite  and  dreamer,  will  you  go  on  like  this  to  the  end 
• — forever  tossed  backward  and  forward  between  duty  and 
happiness,  incapable  of  choice,  of  action?  Is  not  life 
the  test  of  our  moral  force,  and  all  these  inward  waver- 
ings, are  they  not  temptations  of  the  soul? 

September  6,  1867,  Weissenstein.*  (Ten  o^docJc  in  the 
rnorning). — A  marvelous  view  of  blinding  and  bewildering 
beauty.  Above  a  milky  sea  of  cloud,  flooded  with  morning 
light,  the  rolling  waves  of  which  are  beating  up  against 
the  base  of  the  wooded  steeps  of  the  Weissenstein,  the  vast 
circle  of  the  Alps  soars  to  a  sublime  height.  The  eastern 
side  of  the  horizon  is  drowned  in  the  splendors  of  the 
rising  mists;  but  from  the  Todi  westward,  the  whole 
chain  floats  pure  and  clear  between  the  milky  plain  and  the 
pale  blue  sky.  The  giant  assembly  is  sitting  in  council 
above  the  valleys  and  the  lakes  still  submerged  in  vapor. 
The  Clariden,  the  Spannorter,  the  Titlis,  then  the  Bernese 
colossi  from  the  Wetterhorn  to  the  Diablerets,  then  the 

*  Weissenstein  is  a  high  point  in  the  Jura,  above  Soleure. 


164  AMIEUa  JOURNAL. 

peaks  of  Vaud,  Valais,  and  Fribourg,  and  beyond  these 
high  chains  the  two  kings  of  the  Alps,  Mont  Blanc,  of  a 
pale  pink,  and  the  bluish  point  of  Monte  Eosa,  peering 
out  through  a  cleft  in  the  Doldenhorn — such  is  the  com- 
position of  the  great  snowy  amphitheatre.  The  outline 
of  the  horizon  takes  all  possible  forms:  needles,  ridges, 
battlements,  pyramids,  obelisks,  teeth,  fangs,  pincers, 
horns,  cupolas;  the  mountain  profile  sinks,  rises  again, 
twists  and  sharpens  itself  in  a  thousand  ways,  but  always 
so  as  to  maintain  an  angular  and  serrated  line.  Only  the 
inferior  and  secondary  groups  of  mountians  show  any  large 
curves  or  sweeping  undulations  of  form.  The  Alps  are 
more  than  an  upheaval;  they  are  a  tearing  and  gashing  of 
the  earth's  surface.  Their  granite  peaks  bite  into  the  sky 
instead  of  caressing  it.  The  Jura,  on  the  contrary, 
spreads  its  broad  back  complacently  under  the  blue  dome 
of  air. 

Eleven  o^cloclc. — The  sea  of  vapor  has  risen  and  attacked 
the  mountains,  which  for  a  long  time  overlooked  it  like 
so  many  huge  reefs.  For  awhile  it  surged  in  vain  over 
the  lower  slopes  of  the  Alps.  Then  rolling  back  upon 
itself,  it  made  a  more  successful  onslaught  upon  the  Jura, 
and  now  we  are  enveloped  in  its  moving  waves.  The 
milky  sea  has  become  one  vast  cloud,  which  has  swallowed 
up  the  plain  and  the  mountains,  observatory  and  observer. 
Within  this  cloud  one  may  hear  the  sheep-bells  ringing, 
and  see  the  sunlight  darting  hither  and  thither.  Strange 
and  fanciful  sight! 

The  Hanoverian  pianist  has  gone;  the  family  from 
Colmar  has  gone;  a  young  girl  and  her  brother  have 
arrived.  The  girl  is  very  pretty,  and  particularly  dainty 
and  elegant  in  all  her  ways;  she  seems  to  touch  things  only 
with  the  tips  of  her  fingers;  one  compares  her  to  an 
ermine,  a  gazelle.  But  at  the  same  time  she  has  no  inter- 
ests, does  not  know  how  to  admire,  and  thinks  of  herself 
more  than  of  anything  else.  This  perhaps  is  a  drawback 
inseparable  from  a  beauty  and  a  figure  which  attract  all 
eyes.     She  is,  besides,  a  townswoman  to    the  core,   and 


AMIEDS  JOURNAL.  165 

feels  herself  out  of  place  in  this  great  nature,  which  prob- 
ably seems  to  her  barbarous  and  ill-bred.  At  any  rate  she 
does  not  let  it  interfere  with  her  in  any  way,  and  parades 
herself  on  the  mountains  with  her  little  bonnet  and  her 
scarcely  perceptible  sunshade,  as  though  she  were  on  the 
boulevard.  She  belongs  to  that  class  of  tourists  so  amus- 
ingly drawn  by  Toplfer.  Character :  naive  conceit.  Coun- 
try: France.  Standard  of  life :  fashion.  Some  cleverness 
but  no  sense  of  reality,  no  understanding  of  nature,  no 
consciousness  of  the  manifold  diversities  of  the  world  and 
of  the  right  of  life  to  be  what  it  is,  and  to  follow  its  own 
way  and  not  ours. 

This  ridiculous  element  in  her  is  connected  with  the 
same  national  prejudice  which  holds  France  to  be  the  cen- 
ter point  of  the  world,  and  leads  Frenchmen  to  neglect 
geography  and  languages.  The  ordinary  French  towns- 
man is  really  deliciously  stupid  in  spite  of  all  his  natural 
cleverness,  for  he  understands  nothing  but  himself.  His 
pole,  his  axis,  his  center,  his  all  is  Paris — or  even  less — 
Parisian  manners,  the  taste  of  the  day,  fashion.  Thanks 
to  this  organized  fetishism,  we  have  millions  of  copies  of 
one  single  original  pattern ;  a  whole  people  moving  together 
like  bobbins  in  the  same  machine,  or  the  legs  of  a  single 
corps  d*  armee.  The  result  is  wonderful  but  wearisome; 
wonderful  in  point  of  material  strength,  wearisome 
psychologically.  A  hundred  thousand  sheep  are  not  more 
instructive  than  one  sheep,  but  they  furnish  a  hundred 
'  thousand  times  more  wool,  meat,  and  manure.  This  is  all, 
you  may  say,  that  the  shepherd — that  is,  the  master — 
requires.  Very  well,  but  one  can  only  maintain  breeding- 
farms  or  monarchies  on  these  principles.  For  a  republic 
you  must  have  men:  it  cannot  get  on  without  indi- 
vidualities. 

Noon. — An  exquisite  effect.  A  great  herd  of  cattle  are 
running  across  the  meadows  under  my  window,  which  is 
just  illuminated  by  a  furtive  ray  of  sunshine.  The  picture 
has  a  ghostly  suddenness  and  brilliancy;  it  pierces  the 
mists  which  close  upon  it,  like  the  slide  of  a  magic  lantern. 


166  AMIEU8  JO  URN  A  L. 

What  a  pity  I  must  leave  this  place  now  that  everything 
is  BO  bright! 


The  calm  sea  says  more  to  the  thoughtful  soul  than  the 
same  sea  in  storm  and  tumult.  But  we  need  the  under- 
standing of  eternal  things  and  the  sentiment  of  the  infinite 
to  be  able  to  feel  this.  The  divine  state  par  excellence  is 
that  of  silence  and  repose,  because  all  speech  and  all  action 
are  in  themselves  limited  and  fugitive.  Napoleon  with 
his  arms  crossed  over  his  breast  is  more  expressive  than  the 
furious  Hercules  beating  the  air  with  his  athlete's  fists. 
People  of  passionate  temperament  never  understand  this. 
They  are  only  sensitive  to  the  energy  of  succession;  they 
know  nothing  of  the  energy  of  condensation.  They  can 
only  be  impressed  by  acts  and  effects,  by  noise  and  effort. 
They  have  no  instinct  of  contemplation,  no  sense  of  the 
pure  cause,  the  fixed  source  of  all  movement,  the  principle 
of  all  effects,  the  center  of  all  light,  which  does  not  need 
to  spend  itself  in  order  to  be  sure  of  its  own  wealth,  nor  to 
throw  itself  into  violent  motion  to  be  certain  of  its  own 
power.  The  art  of  passion  is  sure  to  please,  but  it  is  not 
the  highest  art;  it  is  true,  indeed,  that  under  the  rule  of 
democracy,  the  serener  and  calmer  forms  of  art  become 
more  and  more  difficult;  the  turbulent  herd  no  longer 
knows  the  gods.  • 


Minds  accustomed  to  analysis  never  allow  objections 
more  than  a  half-value,  because  they  appreciate  the 
variable  and  relative  elements  which  enter  in. 


A  well-governed  mind  learns  in  time  to  find  pleasure  in 
nothing  but  the  true  and  the  just. 

January  10,  18G8.  {Eleven  p.  m.). — We  have  had  a  phil- 
osophical meeting  at  the  house  of  Edouard  Clapar^de.* 
The  question  on  the  order  of  the  day  was  the  nature  of 
sensation.  Clapar^de  pronounced  for  the  absolute  subjec- 
tivity of  all  experience — in  other  words,  for  pure  idealism 

-  *  Edouard  Glaparede.  a  Genevese  naturalist,  bom  1832.  died  1871. 


AMIKL' 8  JOURNAL.  167 

— which  is  amusing,  from  a  naturalist.  According  to  him 
the  ego  alone  exists,  and  the  universe  is  but  a  projection  oi 
the  ego,  a  phantasmagoria  which  we  ourselves  create  with- 
out suspecting  it,  believing  all  the  time  that  we  are 
lookers-on.  It  is  our  noiimenon  which  objectifies  itself  as 
phenomenon.  The  ego,  according  to  him,  is  a  radiating 
force  which,  modified  without  knowing  what  it  is  that 
modifies  it,  imagines  it,  by  virtue  of  the  principle  of 
causality — that  is  to  say,  produces  the  great  illusion  of  the 
objective  world  in  order  so  to  explain  itself.  Our  waking 
life,  therefore,  is  but  a  more  connected  dream.  The  self 
is  an  unknown  which  gives  birth  to  an  infinite  number  of 
unknowns,  by  a  fatality  of  its  nature.  Science  is  summed 
up  in  the  consciousness  that  nothing  exists  but  conscious- 
ness. In  other  words,  the  intelligent  issues  from  the 
unintelligible  in  order  to  return  to  it,  or  rather  the  ego 
explains  itself  by  the  hypothesis  of  the  non-ego,  while  in 
reality  it  is  but  a  dream,  dreaming  itself.  We  might  say 
with  Scarron: 

*'  Et  je  vis  I'ombre  d'un  esprit 
Qui  tra(;ait  I'ombre  d'un  systeme 
Avec  I'ombre  de  I'ombre  meme." 

This  abolition  of  nature  by  natural  science  is  logical,  and 
it  was,  in  fact,  Schelling's  starting-point.  From  the 
standpoint  of  physiology,  nature  is  but  a  necessary  illusion, 
a  constitutional  hallucination.  We  only  escape  from  this 
bewitchment  by  the  moral  activity  of  the  ego,  which  feels 
itself  a  cause  and  a  free  cause,  and  which  by  its  responsi- 
bility breaks  the  spell  and  issues  from  the  enchanted  circle 
of  Maia. 

Maia!  Is  she  indeed  the  true  goddess?  Hindoo  wisdom 
long  ago  regarded  the  world  as  the  dream  of  Brahma. 
Must  we  hold  with  Fichte  that  it  is  the  individual  dream 
of  each  individual  egof  Every  fool  would  then  be  a  cos- 
mogonic  poet  producing  the  firework  of  the  universe  under 
the  dome  of  the  infinite.  But  why  then  give  ourselves 
such  gratuitous  trouble  to  learn?  In  our  dreams,  at  least, 
nightmare  excepted,   we  endow  ourselves  with  complete 


168  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

ubiquity,  liberty  and  omniscience.  Are  we  then  less 
ingenious  and  inventive  awake  than  asleep? 

January  25,  1868. — It  is  when  the  outer  man  begins  to 
decay  that  it  becomes  vitally  important  to  us  to  believe  in 
immortality,  and  to.  feel  with  the  apostle  that  the  inner 
man  is  renewed  from  day  to  day.  But  for  those  who  doubt 
it  and  have  no  hope  of  it?  For  them  the  remainder  of 
life  can  only  be  the  compulsory  dismemberment  of  their 
small  empire,  the  gradual  dismantling  of  their  being  by 
inexorable  destiny.  How  hard  it  is  to  bear — this  long- 
drawn  death,  of  which  the  stages  are  melancholy  and  the 
end  inevitable!  It  is  easy  to  see  why  it  was  that  stoicism 
maintained  the  right  of  suicide.  What  is  my  real  faith? 
Has  the  universal,  or  at  any  rate  the  very  general  and 
common  doubt  of  science,  invaded  me  in  my  turn?  I  have 
defended  the  cause  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  against 
those  who  questioned  it,  and  yet  when  I  have  reduced  them 
to  silence,  I  have  scarcely  known  whether  at  bottom  I  was 
not  after  all  on  their  side.  I  try  to  do  without  hope; 
but  it  is  possible  that  I  have  no  longer  the  strength  for  it, 
and  that,  like  other  men,  I  must  be  sustained  and  consoled 
by  a  belief,  by  the  belief  in  pardon  and  immortality — that 
is  to  say,  by  religious  belief  of  the  Christian  type.  Eeason 
and  thought  grow  tired,  like  muscles  and  nerves.  They 
must  have  their  sleep,  and  this  sleep  is  the  relapse  into  the 
tradition  of  childhood,  into  the  common  hope.  It  takes 
so  much  effort  to  maintain  one's  self  in  an  exceptional 
point  of  view,  that  one  falls  back  into  prejudice  by  pure 
exhaustion,  just  as  the  man  who  stands  indefinitely  always 
ends  by  sinking  to  the  ground  and  reassuming  the  hori- 
zontal position. 

What  is  to  become  of  us  when  everything  leaves  us — 
health,  joy,  affections,  the  freshness  of  sensation,  memory, 
capacity  for  work — when  the  sun  seems  to  us  to  have  lost 
its  warmth,  and  life  is  stripped  of  all  its  charm?  What  is 
to  become  of  us  without  hope?  Must  we  either  harden  or 
forget?  There  is  but  one  answer — keep  close  to  duty-. 
Never  mind  the  future,  if  only  you  have  peace  of  con- 


A  MlErS  JO  URNAL.  169 

science,  if  you  feel  yourself  reconciled,  and  in  harmony 
with  the  order  of  things.  Be  what  you  ought  to  be;  the 
rest  is  God's  affair.  It  is  for  him  to  know  what  is  best,  to 
take  care  of  his  own  glory,  to  ensure  the  happiness  of  what 
depends  on  him,  whether  by  another  life  or  by  annihila- 
tion. And  supposing  that  there  were  no  good  and  holy 
God,  nothing  but  universal  being,  the  law  of  the  all,  an 
ideal  without  hypostasis  or  reality,  duty  would  still  be  the 
key  of  the  enigma,  the  pole-star  of  a  wandering  humanity. 

*'  Fais  ce  que  dois,  advienne  que  pourra." 

January  26,  1868. — Blessed  be  childhood,  which  brings 
down  something  of  heaven  into  the  midst  of  our  rough  earth- 
liness.  These  eighty  thousand  daily  births,  of  which  statis- 
tics tell  us,  represent  as  it  were  an  effusion  of  innocence  and 
freshness,  struggling  not  only  against  the  death  of  the 
race,  but  against  human  corruption,  and  the  universal 
gangrene  of  sin.  All  the  good  and  wholesome  feeling 
which  is  intertwined  with  childhood  and  the  cradle  is  one 
of  the  secrets  of  the  providential  government  of  the  world. 
Suppress  this  life-giving  dew,  and  human  society  would  be 
scorched  and  devastated  by  selfish  passion.  Supposing  that 
humanity  had  been  composed  of  a  thousand  millions  of 
immortal  beings,  whose  number  could  neither  increase  nor 
diminish,  where  should  we  be,  and  what  should  we  be!  A 
thousand  times  more  learned,  no  doubt,  but  a  thousand 
times  more  evil.  There  would  have  been  a  vast  accumula- 
tion of  science,  but  all  the  virtues  engendered  by  suffering 
and  devotion — that  is  to  say,  by  the  family  and  society — 
would  have  no  existence.  And  for  this  there  would  be  no 
compensation. 

Blessed  be  childhood  for  the  good  that  it  does,  and  for 
the  good  which  it  brings  about  carelessly  and  unconsciously 
by  simply  making  us  love  it  and  letting  itself  be  loved. 
What  little  of  paradise  we  see  still  on  earth  is  due  to  its 
presence  among  us.  Without  fatherhood,  without  mother- 
hood, I  think  that  love  itself  would  not  be  enough  to  pre- 
vent men  from  devouring  each  other — men,  that  is  to  say, 


170  AMiEVs  Journal. 

such  as  human  passions  have  made  them.  Thd  aagela 
have  no  need  of  birth  and  death  as  foundations  for  theii* 
life,  because  their  life  is  heavenly. 

February  16,  1868. — I  have  been  finishing  About's 
"Mainfroy  (Les  Mariages  de  Province)."  What  subtlety, 
what  cleverness,  what  verve,  what  aplomb!  About  i«S  & 
master  of  epithet,  of  quick,  light-winged  satire.  For  all 
his  cavalier  freedom  of  manner,  his  work  is  conceived  at 
bottom  in  a  spirit  of  the  subtlest  irony,  and  his  detach- 
ment of  mind  is  so  great  that  he  is  able  to  make  sport  of 
everything,  to  mock  at  others  and  himself,  while  all  the 
time  amusing  himself  extremely  with  his  own  ideas  and 
inventions.  This  is  indeed  the  characteristic  mark,  the 
common  signature,  so  to  speak,  of  esprit  like  his. 

Irrepressible  mischief,  indefatigable  elasticity,  a  power 
of  lumip.ous  mockery,  delight  in  the  perpetual  discharge 
of  innumerable  arrows  from  an  inexhaustible  quiver,  the 
unquenchable  laughter  of  some  little  earth-born  demon, 
perpetual  gayety,  and  a  radiant  force  of  epigram — there 
are  all  these  in  the  true  humorist.  Stulti  sunt  innumer- 
abiles,  said  Erasmus,  the  patron  of  all  these  dainty 
mockers.  Folly,  conceit,  foppery,  silliness,  affectation,, 
hypocrisy,  attitudinizing  and  pedantry  of  all  shades,  and 
in  all  forms,  everything  that  poses,  prances,  bridles,  struts, 
bedizens,  and  plumes  itself,  everything  that  takes  itself 
seriously  and  tries  to  impose  itself  on  mankind — all  this  is 
the  natural  prey  of  the  satirist,  so  many  targets  ready  for- 
his  arrows,  so  many  victims  offered  to  his  attack.  And 
we  all  know  how  rich  the  world  is  in  prey  of  this  kind! 
An  alderman's  feast  of  folly  is  served  up  to  him  in  per- 
petuity; the  spectacle  of  society  oifers  him  an  endless  noce 
de  Gamache.*  With  what  glee  he  raids  through  his 
domains,  and  what  signs  of  destruction  and  massacre  mark 
the  path  of  the  sportsman!  His  hand  is  infallible  like  his 
glance.     The  spirit  of  sarcasm   lives  and  thrives  in  the- 

*  Nocede  Oamache — "repastressoiuptueux." — Littre.  The  allusion, 
of  course,  is  to  Don  Quixote,  Part  II.  chap.  xx. — "  Donde  se  cuentan. 
Uw  bodas  de  Bamacho  el  ricb.  con  el  suceso  de  Basilio  el  pobre." 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  173 

midst  of  universal  wreck;  its  balls  are  enclianted  and 
"tself  invulnerable,  and  it  braves  retaliations  and  reprisals 
because  itself  is  a  mere  flash,  a  bodiless  and  magical 
nothing. 

Clever  men  will  recognize  and  tolerate  nothing  but 
cleverness;  every  authority  rouses  their  ridicule,  every 
superstition  amuses  them,  every  convention  moves  them  to 
contradiction.  Only  force  finds  favor  in  their  eyes,  and 
they  have  no  toleration  for  anything  that  is  not  purely 
natural  and  spontaneous.  And  yet  ten  clever  men  are  not 
worth  one  man  of  talent,  nor  ten  men  of  talent  worth  one 
man  of  genius.  And  in  the  individual,  feeling  is  more 
than  cleverness,  reason  is  worth  as  much  as  feeling,  and 
conscience  has  it  over  reason.  If,  then,  the  clever  man  is 
not  mockahle,  he  may  at  least  be  neither  loved,  nor  con- 
sidered, nor  esteemed.  He  may  make  himself  feared,  it  is 
true,  and  force  others  to  respect  his  independence;  but 
this  negative  advantage,  which  is  the  result  of  a  negative 
superiority,  brings  no  happiness  with  it.  Cleverness  is 
serviceable  for  everything,  sufficient  for  nothing. 

March  8,  1868. — Madame kept  me  to  have  tea  with 

three  young  friends  of  hers — three  sisters,  I  think.  The 
two  youngest  are  extremely  pretty,  the  dark  one  as  pretty 
as  the  blonde.  Their  fresh  faces,  radiant  with  the 
bloom  of  youth,  were  a  perpetual  delight  to  the  eye. 
This  electric  force  of  beauty  has  a  beneficent  effect 
upon  the  man  of  letters;  it  acts  as  a  real  restora- 
tive. Sensitive,  impressionable,  absorbent  as  I  am,  the 
neighborhood  of  health,  of  beauty,  of  intelligence. and  of 
goodness,  exercises  a  powerful  infiuence  upon  my  whole 
being;  and  in  the  same  way  I  am  troubled  and  affected 
just  as  easily  by  the  presence  near  me  of  troubled  lives  or 

diseased  souls.     Madame said  of  me  that  I  must  be 

"superlatively  feminine"  in  all  my  perceptions.  This 
ready  sympathy  rnd  sensitiveness  is  the  reason  of  it.  If  I 
had  but  desired  it  ever  so  little,  I  should  have  had  the 
magical  clairvoyance  of  the  somnambulist,  and  could  have 
reproduced  in  myself  a  number  of  strange  phenomena.     I 


1 72  AMIKU8  JO  URNAL. 

know  it,  but  I  have  always  been  on  my  guard  against  it, 
whether  from  indifference  or  from  prudence.  When  I 
think  of  the  intuitions  of  every  kind  which  have  come  to 
me  since  my  youth,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  lived  a 
multitude  of  lives.  Every  characteristic  individuality 
shapes  itself  ideally  in  me,  or  rather  molds  me  for  the  mo- 
ment into  its  own  image;  and  I  have  only  to  turn  my 
attention  upon  myself  at  such  a  time  to  be  able  to  under- 
■tand  a  new  mode  of  being,  a  new  phase  of  human  nature. 
In  this  way  I  have  been,  turn  by  turn,  mathematician, 
musician,  savant,  monk,  child,  or  mother.  In  these  states 
of  universal  sympathy  I  have  even  seemed  to  myself  some- 
times to  enter  into  the  condition  of  the  animal  or  the 
plant,  and  even  of  an  individual  animal,  of  a  given  plant. 
This  faculty  of  ascending  and  descending  metamorphosis, 
this  power  of  simplifying  or  of  adding  to  one's  individual- 
ity, has  sometimes  astounded  my  friends,  even  the  most 
subtle  of  them.  It  has  to  do  no  doubt  with  the  extreme 
facility  which  I  have  for  impersonal  and  objective  thought, 
and  this  again  accounts  for  the  difficulty  which  I  feel  in 
realizing  my  own  individuality,  in  being  simply  one  man 
having  his  proper  number  and  ticket.  To  withdraw 
within  my  own  individual  limits  has  always  seemed  to  me 
a  strange,  arbitrary,  and  conventional  process.  I  seem  to 
myself  to  be  a  mere  conjuror's  apparatus,  an  instrument  of 
vision  and  perception,  a  person  without  personality,  a  sub- 
ject without  any  determined  individuality- -an  instance, 
to  speak  technically,  of  pure  "  determinability "  and 
"formability,"  and  therefore  I  can  only  resign  myself  with 
difficulty  to  play  the  purely  arbitrary  part  of  a  private  citi- 
zen, inscribed  upon  the  roll  of  a  particular  town  or  a  par- 
ticular country.  In  action  I  feel  myself  out  of  place;  my 
true  milieu  is  contemplation.  Pure  virtuality  and  perfect 
equilibrium — in  these  I  am  most  at  home.  There  I  feel 
myself  free,  disinterested,  and  sovereign.  Is  it  a  call  or  a 
temptation? 

It  represents  perhaps  the  oscillation  between  the  two 
geniuses,   the  Greek  and  the  Koman,  the  eastern  and  the 


A  MI  EL'S  JO  URNAL.  1  Td- 

western,  the  ancient  and  the  Christian,  or  the  struggle 
between  the  two  ideals,  that  of  liberty  and  that  of  holiness. 
Liberty  raises  us  to  the  gods;  holiness  prostrates  us  on  the 
ground.  Action  limits  us;  whereas  in  the  state  of  con- 
templation we  are  endlessly  expansive.  Will  localizes  us; 
thought  universalizes  us.  My  soul  wavers  between  half  a 
dozen  antagonistic  general  conceptions,  because  it  is 
responsive  to  all  the  great  instincts  of  human  nature,  and 
its  aspiration  is  to  the  absolute,  which  is  only  to  be  reached 
through  a  succession  of  contraries.  It  has  taken  me  a 
great  deal  of  time  to  understand  myself,  and  I  frequently 
find  myself  beginning  over  again  the  study  of  the  oft-solved 
problem,  so  difficult  is  it  for  us  to  maintain  any  fixed  point 
within  us.  I  love  everything,  and  detest  one  thing  only 
— the  hopeless  imprisonment  of  my  being  within  a  single^ 
arbitrary  form,  even  were  it  chosen  by  myself.  Liberty 
for  the  inner  man  is  then  the  strongest  of  my  passions — 
perhaps  my  only  passion.  Is  such  a  passion  lawful?  It 
has  been  my  habit  to  think  so,  but  intermittently,  by  fits, 
and  starts.     I  am  not  perfectly  sure  of  it. 

March  17,  18G8. — Women  wish  to  be  loved  without  a 
why  or  a  wherefore ;  not  because  they  are  pretty,  or  good, 
or  well  bred,  or  graceful,  or  intelligent,  but  because  they 
are  themselves.  All  analysis  seems  to  them  to  imply  a  loss 
of  consideration,  a  subordination  of  their  personality  tO' 
something  which  dominates  and  measures  it.  They  will 
have  none  of  it;  and  their  instinct  is  just.  As  soon  as  we 
can  give  a  reason  for  a  feeling  we  are  no  longer  under  the 
spell  of  it;  we  appreciate,  we  weigh,  we  are  free,  at  least 
in  principle.  Love  must  always  remain  a  fascination,  a 
witchery,  if  the  empire  of  woman  is  to  endure.  Once  the 
mystery  gone,  the  power  goes  with  it.  Love  must  always 
seem  to  us  indivisible,  insoluble,  superior  to  all  analysis,  if 
it  is  to  preserve  that  appearance  of  infinity,  of  something 
supernatural  and  miraculous,  which  makes  its  chief  beauty. 
The  majority  of  beings  despise  what  they  understand,  and 
bow  only  before  the  inexplicable.  The  feminine  triumph 
par  excellence  is  to  convict  of  obscurity  that  virile  intelli- 


174  AMI  EL'S  JOUaNAL. 

gence  which  makes  so  much  pretense  to  enlightenment 
And  when  a  woman  inspires  love,  it  is  then  especially  that 
she  enjoys  this  proud  triumph.  I  admit  that  her  exulta- 
tion has  its  grounds.  Still,  it  seems  to  me  that  love — true 
and  profound  love — should  be  a  source  of  light  and  calm, 
a  religion  and  a  revelation,  in  which  there  is  no  place  left 
for  the  lower  victories  of  vanity.  Great  souls  care  only 
for  what  is  great,  and  to  the  spirit  which  hovers  in  the 
jsight  of  the  Infinite,  any  sort  of  artifice  seems  a  disgraceful 
puerility. 

March  19,  1868. — What  we  call  little  things  are  merely 
the  causes  of  great  things;  they  are  the  beginning,  the 
embryo,  and  it  is  the  point  of  departure  which,  generally 
speaking,  decides  the  whole  future  of  an  existence.  One 
single  black  speck  may  be  the  beginning  of  a  gangrene, 
of  a  storm,  of  a  revolution.  From  one  insignificant  mis- 
understanding hatred  and  separation  may  finally  issue. 
An  enormous  avalanche  begins  by  the  displacement  of  one 
atom,  and  the  conflagration  of  a  town  by  the  fall  of  a 
match.  Almost  everything  comes  from  almost  nothing, 
one  might  think.  It  is  only  the  first  crystallization  which 
is  the  affair  of  mind ;  the  ultimate  aggregation  is  the  affair 
of  mass,  of  attraction,  of  acquired  momentum,  of  mechani- 
cal acceleration.  History,  like  nature,  illustrates  for  us 
the  application  of  the  law  of  inertia  and  agglomeration 
which  is  put  lightly  in  the  proverb,  "Nothing  succeeds  like 
success."  Find  the  right  point  at  starting;  strike  straight, 
begin  well;  everything  depends  on  it.  Or  more  simply 
still,  provide  yourself  with  good  luck — for  accident  plays 
a  vast  part  in  human  affairs.  Those  who  have  succeeded 
most  in  this  world  (Napoleon  or  Bismarck)  confess  it; 
calculation  is  not  without  its  uses,  but  chance  makes  mock 
of  calculation,  and  the  result  of  a  planned  combination  is 
in  no  wise  proportional  to  its  merit.  From  the  super- 
natural point  of  view  people  say:  "This  chance,  as  you 
call  it,  is,  in  reality,  the  action  of  providence.  Man  may 
give  himself  what  trouble  he  will — God  leads  him  all  the 
same."     Only,  unfortunately,  this  supposed  intervention 


AMlEVa  JO  URNAL.  1 75. 

as  often  as  not  ends  in  the  defeat  of  zeal,  virtue,  and 
devotion,  and  the  success  of  crime,  stupidity,  and  selfish- 
ness. Poor,  sorely-tried  Faith !  She  has  but  one  way  out 
of  the  difficulty — the  word  Mystery !  It  is  in  the  origins: 
of  things  that  the  great  secret  of  destiny  lies  hidden, 
although  the  breathless  sequence  of  after  events  has  oftenj 
many  surprises  for  us  too.  So  that  at  first  sight  history 
seems  to  us  accident  and  confusion;  looked  at  for  the 
second  time,  it  seems  to  us  logical  and  necessary;  looked 
at  for  the  third  time,  it  appears  to  us  a  mixture  of  neces- 
sity and  liberty;  on  the  fourth  examination  we  scarcely 
know  what  to  think  of  it,  for  if  force  is  the  source  of  right, 
and  chance  the  origin  of  force,  we  come  back  to  our  first 
explanation,  only  with  a  heavier  heart  than  when  we- 
began. 

Is  Democritus  right  after  all  ?  Is  chance  the  foundation 
of  everything,  all  laws  being  but  the  imaginations  of  our 
reason,  which,  itself  born  of  accident,  has  a  certain  power 
of  self-deception  and  of  inventing  laws  which  it  believes  to 
be  real  and  objective,  just  as  a  man  who  dreams  of  a  meal 
thinks  that  he  is  eating,  while  in  reality  there  is  neither 
table,  nor  food,  nor  guest  nor  nourishment?  Every  thing- 
goes  on  as  if  there  were  order  and  reason  and  logio  in  the 
world,  while  in  reality  everything  is  fortuitous,  accidental, 
and  apparent.  The  universe  is  but  the  kaleidoscope 
which  turns  within  the  mind  of  the  so-called  thinking 
being,  who  is  himself  a  curiosity  without  a  cause,  an  acci- 
dent conscious  of  the  great  accident  around  him,  and  who 
amuses  himself  with  it  so  long  as  the  phenomenon  of  his 
vision  lasts.  Science  is  a  lucid  madness  occupied  in  tabu- 
lating its  own  necessary  hallucinations.  The  philosopher 
laughs,  for  he  alone  escapes  being  duped,  while  he  sees 
other  men  the  victims  of  persistent  illusion.  He  is  like 
some  mischievous  spectator  of  a  ball  who  has  cleverly 
taken  all  the  strings  from  the  violins,  and  yet  sees  musi- 
cians and  -dancers  moving  and  pirouetting  before  him  as 
though  the  music  were  still  going  on.  Such  an  experience 
would  delight  him  as  proving  that  the  universal  St.  Vitus' 


176  ^  MI  EL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

dance  is  also  nothing  but  an  aberration  of  the  inner  con- 
sciousness, and  that  the  philosopher  is  in  tlie  right  of  it  as 
against  the  general  credulity.  Is  it  not  even  enough  sim- 
ply to  shut  one's  ears  in  a  ballroom,  to  believe  one's  self  in 
a  madhouse? 

The  multitude  of  religions  on  the  earth  must  have  very 
much  the  same  effect  upon  the  man  who  has  killed  the 
p*eligious  idea  in  himself.  But  it  is  a  dangerous  attempt, 
this  repudiation  of  the  common  law  of  the  race — this 
claim  to  be  in  the  right,  as  against  all  the  world. 

It  is  not  often  that  the  philosophic  scoffers  forget  them- 
selves for  others.  Why  should  they?  Self-devotion  is  a 
serious  thing,  and  seriousness  would  be  inconsistent  with 
their  role  of  mockery.  To  be  unselfish  we  must  love;  to 
love  we  must  believe  in  the  reality  of  what  we  love;  we 
must  know  how  to  suffer,  how  to  forget  ourselves,  how  to 
jield  ourselves  up — in  a  word,  how  to  be  serious.  A  spirit 
of  incessant  mockery  means  absolute  isolation;  it  is  the 
sign  of  a  thoroughgoing  egotism.  If  we  wish  to  do  good 
to  men  we  must  pity  and  not  despise  them.  We  must 
learn  to  say  of  them,  not "  What  fools ! "  but  "  What  unfor- 
tunates !  "  The  pessimist  or  the  nihilist  seems  to  me  less 
cold  and  icy  than  the  mocking  atheist.  He  reminds  me  of 
the  somber  words  of  "  Ahasverus :" 

"  Vous  qui  manquez  de  cbarite, 
Tremblez  a  mon  supplice  etrange: 
Ce  n'est  point  sa  divinite, 
C'est  rhumanite  que  Dieu  venge!  "* 

It  is  Detter  to  be  lost  than  to  be  saved  all  alone;  and  it  is  a 
w^rong  to  one's  kind  to  wish  to  be  wise  without  making 
others  share  our  wisdom.  It  is,  besides,  an  illusion  to  sup- 
pose that  such   a  privilege  is  possible,  when  everything 

"*  Tlie  quotation  is  from  Quinet's  "Ahasverus  "  (first  published  1833), 
that  strange  Welt-gedicht,  which  the  author  himself  described  as 
"  I'histoire  du  monde,  de  Dieu  dans  le  monde,  et  enfin  du  doute  dans 
le  monde,"  and  which,  with  Faust,  probably  suggested  the  unfinished 
but  in  many  ways  brilliant  performance  of  the  young  Spaniard, 
Espronceda — El  Diablo  Mundo. 


AMTEUS  JOURNAL.  177 

proves  the  solidarity  of  individuals,  and  when  no  one  can 
think  at  all  except  by  means  of  the  general  store  of 
thought,  accumulated  and  refined  by  centuries  of  cultiva- 
tion and  experience.  Absolute  individualism  is  an  absurd- 
ity. A  man  may  be  isolated  in  his  own  particular  and 
temporary  milieu,  but  every  one  of  our  thoughts  or  feel- 
ings finds,  has  found,  and  will  find,  its  echo  in  humanity. 
Such  an  echo  is  immense  and  far-resounding  in  the  case  ol 
those  representative  men  who  have  been  adopted  by  great 
fractions  of  humanity  as  guides,  revealers,  and  reformers ; 
but  it  exists  for  everybody.  Every  sincere  utterance  of 
the  soul,  every  testimony  faithfully  borne  to  a  personal 
conviction,  is  of  use  to  some  one  and  some  thing,  even 
when  you  know  it  not,  and  when  your  mouth  is  stopped 
by  violence,  or  the  noose  tightens  round  your  neck,  A 
word  spoken  to  some  one  preserves  an  indestructible  influ- 
ence, just  as  any  movement  whatever  may  be  metamor- 
phosed, but  not  undone.  Here,  then,  is  a  reason  for  not 
mocking,  for  not  being  silent,  for  affirming,  for  acting. 
We  must  have  faith  in  truth ;  we  must  seek  the  true  and 
spread  it  abroad;  we  must  love  men  and  serve  them. 

April  9,  1868. — I  have  been  spending  three  hours  over 
Lotze's  big  volume  ("Geschichte  der  Aesthetikin  Deutsch- 
land").  It  begins  attractively,  but  the  attraction  wanes, 
and  by  the  end  I  was  very  tired  of  it.  Why?  Because 
the  noise  of  a  mill-wheel  sends  one  to  sleep,  and  these 
pages  without  paragraphs,  these  interminable  chapters, 
and  this  incessant,  dialectical  clatter,  affect  me  as  though 
I  were  listening  to  a  word-mill.  I  end  by  yawning  like 
■any  simple  non -philosophical  mortal  in  the  face  of  all  this 
heaviness  and  pedantry.  Erudition,  and  even  thought, 
are  not  everything.  An  occasional  touch  of  esprit,  a  little 
sharpness  of  phrase,  a  little  vivacity,  imagination,  and 
grace,  would  spoil  neither.  Do  these  pedantic  books  leave 
a  single  image  or  formula,  a  single  new  or  striking  fact 
behind  them  in  the  memory,  when  one  puts  them  down? 
No;  nothing  but  confusion  and  fatigue.  Oh  for  clearness, 
terseness,  brevity!     Diderot,  Voltaire,  and  even  Galiani! 


J 78  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

A  short  article  by  Sainte-Beuve,  Scherer,  Renan,  Victor 
Oherbuliez,  gives  one  more  pleasure,  and  makes  one  think 
and  reflect  more,  than  a  thousand  of  these  heavy  German 
pages,  stuffed  to  the  brim,  and  showing  rather  the  Avork 
itself  than  its  results.  The  Germans  gather  fuel  for  the 
pile:  it  is  the  French  who  kindle  it.  For  heaven's  sake,' 
spare  me  your  lucubrations;  give  me  facts  or  ideas.  Keep 
your  vats,  your  must,  your  dregs,  in  the  background. 
What  I  ask  is  wine — wine  which  will  sparkle  in  the  glass, 
and  stimulate  intelligence  instead  of  weighing  it  down. 

April  11,  1868.  {Mornex  sur  Saleve). — I  left  town  in  a 
great  storm  of  wind,  which  was  raising  clouds  of  dust 
along  the  suburban  roads,  and  two  hours  later  I  found 
myself  safely  installed  among  the  mountains,  just  like  last 
year.  I  think  of  staying  a  week  here.  .  .  .  The 
sounds  of  the  village  are  wafted  to  my  open  window, 
barkings  of  distant  dogs,  voices  of  women  at  the  fountain, 
the  songs  of  birds  in  the  lower  orchards.  The  green  car- 
pet of  the  plain  is  dappled  by  passing  shadows  thrown 
upon  it  by  the  clouds ;  the  landscape  has  the  charm  of  deli- 
cate tint  and  a  sort  of  languid  grace.  Already  I  am  full 
of  a  sense  of  well-being,  I  am  tasting  the  joys  of  that  con- 
templative state  in  which  the  soul,  issuing  from  itself, 
becomes  as  it  were  the  soul  of  a  country  or  a  landscape, 
and  feels  living  within  it  a  multitude  of  lives.  Here  is 
no  more  resistance,  negation,  blame ;  everything  is  affirma- 
tive; I  feel  myself  in  harmony  with  nature  and  with  sur- 
roundings, of  which  I  seem  to  myself  the  expression.  The 
heart  opens  to  the  immensity  of  things.  This  is  what  I 
love !     Nam  mihires,  non  me  rebus  suhmittere  conor. 

April  12,  1868.  {Faster  Day),  Mornex  Eight  A.  m. — 
The  day  has  opened  solemnly  and  religiously.  There  is  a 
tinkling  of  bells  from  the  valley :  even  the  fields  seem  to  be 
breathing  forth  a  canticle  of  praise.  Humanity  must 
have  a  worship,  and,  all  things  considered,  is  not  the 
-Christian  worship  the  best  among  those  which  have  ex- 
isted on  a  large  scale?  The  religion  of  sin,  of  repentance, 
and    reconciliation — the    religion  of  the  new  birth  and 


AMIEU8  JOURNAL.  179 

of  eternal  life — is  not  a  religion  to  be  ashamed  of.  In 
spite  of  all  the  aberrations  of  fanaticism,  all  the  supersti- 
tions of  formalism,  all  the  ugly  superstructures  of 
hypocrisy,  all  the  fantastic  puerilities  of  theology,  the  gos- 
pel has  modified  the  world  and  consoled  mankind.  Chris- 
tian humanity  is  not  much  better  than  pagan  humanity, 
but  it  would  be  much  worse  without  a  religion,  and  with- 
out this  religion.  Every  religion  proposes  an  ideal  and  a 
model;  the  Christian  ideal  is  sublime,  and  its  model  of  a 
divine  beauty.  We  may  hold  aloof  from  the  churches, 
and  yet  bow  ourselves  before  Jesus.  We  may  be  suspicious 
of  the  clergy,  and  refuse  to  have  anything  to  do  with  cate- 
chisms, and  yet  love  the  Holy  and  the  Just,  who  came  to 
save  and  not  to  curse.  Jesus  will  always  supply  us  with 
the  best  criticism  of  Christianity,  and  when  Christianity 
has  passed  away  the  religion  of  Jesus  will  in  all  probability 
survive.  After  Jesus  as  God  we  shall  come  back  to  faith 
in  the  God  of  Jesus. 

Five  o'clock  p.  m. — I  have  been  for  a  long  walk  through 
Cezargues,  Eseri,  and  the  Yves  woods,  returning  by  the 
Pont  du  Loup.  The  weather  was  cold  and  gray.  A 
great  popular  merrymaking  of  some  sort,  with  its  multi- 
tude of  blouses,  and  its  drums  and  fifes,  has  been  going  on 
riotously  for  an  hour  under  my  window.  The  crowd  has 
sung  a  number  of  songs,  drinking  songs,  ballads, 
romances,  but  all. more  or  less  heavy  and  ugly.  The  muse 
has  never  touched  our  country  people,  and  the  Swiss  race 
is  not  graceful  even  in  its  gayety.  A  bear  in  high  spirits — 
this  is  what  one  thinks  of.  The  poetry  it  produces,  too,  is 
desperately  vulgar  and  commonplace.  Why?  In  the  first 
place,  because,  in  spite  of  the  pretenses  of  our  democratic 
philosophies,  the  classes  whose  backs  are  bent  with  manual 
labor  are  aBsthetically  inferior  to  the  others.  In  the  next 
place,  because  our  old  rustic  peasant  poetry  is  dead,  and 
the  peasant,  when  he  tries  to  share  the  music  or  the  poetry 
of  the  cultivated  classes,  only  succeeds  in  caricaturing  it, 
and  not  in  copying  it.  Democracy,  by  laying  it  down  that 
there  is  but  one  class  for  all  men,  has  in  fact  done  a  wroHg 


180  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

to  everything  that  is  not  first-rate.  As  we  can  no  longer 
without  offense  judge  meu  according  to  a  certain  recog- 
nized order,  we  can  only  compare  them  to  the  best  that 
exists,  and  then  they  naturally  seem  to  us  more  mediocre, 
more  ugly,  more  deformed  than  before.  If  the  passion  for 
equality  potentially  raises  the  average,  it  really  degrades 
nineteen-twentieths  of  individuals  below  their  former 
place.  There  is  a  progress  in  the  domain  of  law  and  a 
falling  back  in  the  domain  of  art.  And  meanwhile  the 
artists  see  multiplying  before  them  their  bete-noire,  the 
bourgeois,  the  Philistine,  the  presumptuous  ignoramus,  the 
quack  who  plays  at  science,  and  the  feather-brain  who 
thinks  himself  the  equai  of  the  intelligent. 

"Commonness  will  prevail,"  as  De  Candolle  said  in 
speaking  of  the  graminaceous  plants.  The  era  of  equality 
means  the  triumph  of  mediocrity.  It  is  disappointing, 
but  inevitable;  for  it  is  one  of  time's  revenges.  Humanity, 
after  having  organized  itself  on  the  basis  of  the  dissimi- 
larity of  individuals,  is  now  organizing  itself  on  the  basis 
of  their  similarity,  and  the  one  exclusive  principle  is  about 
as  true  as  the  other.  Art  no  doubt  will  lose,  but  justice 
will  gain.  Is  not  universal  leveling-down  the  law  of 
nature,  and  when  all  has  been  leveled  will  not  all  have 
been  destroyed?  So  that  the  world  is  striving  with  all  its 
force  for  the  destruction  of  what  it  has  itself  brought 
forth.  Life  is  the  blind  pursuit  of  its  own  negation;  as 
has  been  said  of  the  wicked,  nature  also  works  for  her 
own  disappointment,  she  labors  at  what  she  hates,  she 
weaves  her  own  shroud,  and  piles  up  the  stones  of  her  own 
tomb.  God  may  well  forgive  us,  for  '•  we  know  not  what 
to  do." 

Just  as  the  sum  of  force  is  always  identical  in  the  mate- 
rial universe,  and  presents  a  spectacle  not  of  diminution 
nor  of  augmentation  but  simply  of  constant  metamor- 
phosis, so  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  sum  of  good  is  in 
reality  always  the  same,  and  that  therefore  all  progress  on 
one  side  is  compensated  inversely  on  another  side.  If  this 
were  so  we  ought  never  to  say  that  period  or  a  people  is 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  181 

absolutely  and  as  a  whole  superior  to  another  time  or  another 
people,  but  only  that  there  is  superiority  in  certain  points. 
The  great  difference  between  man  and  man  would,  on. 
these  principles,  consist  in  the  art  of  transforming  vitality 
into  spirituality,   and  latent  power  into  useful  energy. 

>The  same  difference  would  hold  good  between  nation  and 
nation,  so  that  the  object  of  the  simultaneous  or  succes- 

-  sive  competition  of  mankind  in  history  would  be  the  ex- 
traction of  the  maximum  of  humanity  from  a  given 
amount  of  animality.  Education,  morals,  and  politics 
would  be  only  variations  of  the  same  art,  the  art  of  living 
— that  is  to  say,  of  disengaging  the  pure  form  and  subtlest 
essence  of  our  individual  being. 

April  26,  1868.  {Sunday^  Mid-day). — A  gloomy  morn- 
ing. On  all  sides  a  depressing  outlook,  and  within,  dis- 
gust with  self. 

Ten  p.  M. — Visits  and  a  walk.  I  have  spent  the  evening 
alone.  Many  things  to-day  have  taught  me  lessons  of  wis- 
dom. I  have  seen  the  hawthorns  covering  themselves  with 
blossom,  and  the  whole  valley  springing  up  afresh  under 
the  breath  of  the  spring.  I  have  been  the  spectator  of 
faults  of  conduct  on  the  part  of  old  men  who  will  not 
grow  old,  and  whose  heart  is  in  rebellion  against  the 
natural  law.  I  have  watched  the  working  of  marriage  in. 
its  frivolous  and  commonplace  forms,  and  listened  to 
trivial  preaching.  I  have  been  a  witness  of  griefs  without 
hope,  of  loneliness  that  claimed  one's  pity.  I  have  lis- 
tened to  pleasantries  on  the  subject  of  madness,  and  to  the 
merry  songs  of  the  birds.  And  everything  has  had  the 
same  message  for  me :  "  Place  yourself  once  more  in  har- 

I  mony  with  the  universal  law;  accept  the  will  of  God; 
make  a  religious  use  of  life;  work  while  it  is  yet  day;  be 
at  once  serious  and  cheerful;  know  how  to  repeat  with 
the  apostle,  '  I  have  learned  in  whatsoever  state  I  am 
therewith  to  be  content. '  " 

August  26,  1868. — After  all  the  storms  of  feeling  within 
and  the  organic  disturbances  without,  which  during  these 
latter  months  ha-v  a  pinned  me  so  closely  to  my  own  in di- 


X  82  A  Af I  EL'S  JO  URNAL. 

vidnal  existence,  shall  I  ever  be  able  to  reascend  into  the 
region  of  pure  intelligence,  to  enter  again  upon  the  disin- 
terested and  impersonal  life,  to  recover  my  old  indifference 
toward  subjective  miseries,  and  regain  a  purely  scientific 
and  contemplative  state  of  mind?  Shall  I  ever  succeed 
ia  forgetting  all  the  needs  which  bind  me  to  earth  an(} 
to  humanity?  Shall  I  ever  become  pure  spirit?  Alas 
I  cannot  persuade  myself  to  believe  it  possible  for  au 
in»tant.  I  see  infirmity  and  weakness  close  upon  me,  I 
feel  I  cannot  do  without  affection,  and  I  know  that  I  have 
no  ambition,  and  that  my  faculties  are  declining.  I 
remember  that  I  am  forty-seven  years  old,  and  that  all  my 
brood  of  youthful  hopes  has  flown  away.  So  that  there 
is  no  deceiving  myself  as  to  the  fate  which  awaits  me : 
increasing  loneliness,  mortification  of  spirit,  long-con* 
tinned  regret,  melancholy  neither  to  be  consoled  nor  con- 
fessed, a  mournful  old  age,  a  slow  decay,  a  death  in  the 
desert ! 

Terrible  dilemma !  Whatever  is  still  possible  to  me  has 
lost  its  savor,  while  all  that  I  could  still  desire  escapes  me, 
and  will  always  escape  me.  Every  impulse  ends  in  weari- 
ness and  disappointment.  Discouragement,  depression, 
weakness,  apathy;  there  is  the  dismal  series  which  must 
be  forever  begun  and  re-begun,  while  we  are  still  rolling 
up  the  Sisyphean  rock  of  life.  Is  it  not  simpler  and 
shorter  to  plunge  head-foremost  into  the  gulf? 

No,  rebel  as  we  may,  there  is  but  one  solution — to  sub- 
mit to  the  general  order,  to  accept,  to  resign  ourselves, 
and  to  do  still  what  we  can.  It  is  our  self-will,  our  aspira- 
tions, our  dreams,  that  must  be  sacrificed.  We  must  give 
np  the  hope  of  happiness  once  for  all !  Immolation  of  the 
self — death  to  self — this  is  the  only  suicide  which  is  either 
useful  or  permitted.  In  my  present  mood  of  indifference 
and  disinterestedness,  there  is  some  secret  ill-humor,  some 
wounded  pride,  a  little  rancor;  there  is  selfishness  in 
short,  since  a  premature  claim  for  rest  is  implied  in  it. 
Absolute  disinterestedness  is  only  reached  in  that  perfect 
humility  which  tramples  the  self  under  foot  for  the  glcry 
of  God. 


j^ 


•  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  183 

I  have  no  more  strength  left,  I  wish  for  nothing;  but 
that  is  not  what  is  wanted.  I  must  wish  what  God  wishes; 
I  must  pass  from  indifference  to  sacrifice,  and  from  sacri- 
fice to  self-devotion.  The  cup  which  f  would  fain  put 
away  from  me  is  the  misery  of  living,  the  shame  of  exist- 
ing and  suffering  as  a  common  creature  who  has  missed  his 
vocation;  it  is  the  bitter  and  increasing  humiliation  of 
declining  power,  of  growing  old  under  the  weight  of  one's 
^/own  disapproval,  and  the  disappointment  of  one's  friends! 
■  "Wilt  thou  be  healed?"  was  the  text  of  last  Sunday's 
sermon.  "  Come  to  me,  all  ye  who  are  weary  and  heavy- 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest. "  "  And  if  our  heart  con- 
demn us,  God  is  greater  than  our  heart." 

August  27,  1868.— To-day  I  took  up  the  "  Penseroso"* 
again.  I  have  often  violated  its  maxims  and  forgotten  its 
lessons.  Still,  this  volume  is  a  true  son  of  my  soul,  and 
breathes  the  true  spirit  of  the  inner  life.  Whenever  I 
wish  to  revive  my  consciousness  of  my  own  tradition,  it  is 
pleasant  to  me  to  read  over  this  little  gnomic  collection 
which  has  had  such  scant  justice  done  to  it,  and  which, 
were  it  another's,  I  should  often  quote.  I. like  to  feel 
that  in  it  I  have  attained  to  that  relative  truth  which  may 
be  defined  as  consistency  with  self,  the  harmony  of  appear- 
ance with  reality,  of  thought  with  expression — in  other 
words,  sincerity,  ingenuousness,  inwardness.  It  is  personal 
experience  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word. 

September  21,  1868.  (  Villars). — A  lovely  autumn  effect. 
Everything  was  veiled  in  gloom  this  morning,  and  a  gray 
mist  of  rain  floated  between  us  and  the  whole  circle  of 
mountains.  Now  the  strip  of  blue  sky  which  made  its 
appearance  at  first  behind  the  distant  peaks  has  grown 

*  "  II  Penseroso,"  poesies-maximes  par  H.  F.  Amiel:  Geneve,  1858. 
This  little  book,  which  contains  one  hundred  and  thirty-three  maxims, 
several  of  which  are  quoted  in  the  Jorunal  Intime,  is  prefaced  foy  a 
motto  translated  from  Shelley — "Ce  n'est  pas  la  science  qui  nous 
manque,  a  nous  modernes;  nous  I'avons  surabondamment.  .  .  . 
Mais  ce  que  nous  avons  absorbe  nous  absorbe.  .  .  .  C©  qui  nrais 
manque  c'est  la  poesie  de  la  vie." 


184  AMIKU 8  JOURNAL. 

larger,  has  monnted  to  the  zenith,  and  the  dome  of 
heaven,  swept  almost  clear  of  cloud,  sends  streaming  down 
upon  us  the  pale  rays  of  a  convalescent  sun.  The  day 
now  promises  kimdly,  and  all  is  well  that  ends  well. 

Thus  after  a  season  of  tears  a  sober  and  softened  joy  may 
return  to  us.  Say  to  yourself  that  you  are  entering  upon 
the  autumn  of  your  life;  that  the  graces  of  spring  and 
the  splendors  of  summer  are  irrevocably  gone,  but  that 
autumn  too  has  its  beauties.  The  autumn  weather  is 
often  darkened  by  rain,  cloud,  and  mist,  but  the  air  is 
still  soft,  and  the  sun  still  delights  the  eyes,  and  touches 
the  yellowing  leaves  caressingly;  it  is  the  time  for  fruit, 
for  harvest,  for  the  vintage,  the  moment  for  making  pro- 
vision for  the  winter.  Here  the  herds  of  milch-cows  have 
already  come  down  to  the  level  of  the  chdlet,  and  next 
week  they  will  be  lower  than  we  are.  This  living  barom- 
eter is  a  warning  to  us  that  the  time  has  come  to  say  fare- 
well to  the  mountains.  There  is  nothing  to  gain,  and 
•everything  to  lose,  by  despising  the  example  of  nature,  and 
making  arbitrary  rules  of  life  for  one's  self.  Our  liber.'y, 
wisely  understood,  is  but  a  voluntary  obedience  to  the 
universal  laws  of  life.  My  life  has  reached  its  month  of 
September.  May  I  recognize  it  in  time,  and  suit  thought 
and  action  to  the  fact  I 

November  13,  1868. — I  am  reading  part  of  two  books 
by  Charles  Secretan*  "Recherches  sur  la  Methode,"  1857; 
"  Precis  elementaire  de  Philosophic,"  1868.  The  philosophy 
of  Secretan  is  the  philosophy  of  Christianity,  considered  as 
the  one  true  religion.  Subordination  of  nature  to  intelli- 
gence, of  intelligence  to  will,  and  of  will  to  dogmatic  faith 
— such  is  its  general  framework.  Unfortunately  there  are 
no  signs  of  critical,  or  comparative,  or  historical  study  in 
it,  and  as  an  apologetic — in  which  satire  is  curiously  mingled 
"with  glorification  of  the  religion  of  love — it  leaves  upon  one 

*  Charles  Secretan,  a  Lausanne  professor,  the  friend  of  Vinet 
"born  1819.  He  published  "  Legons  sur  la  Philosophie  de  Leibnitz,* 
"Philosophie  de  la  Liberie,"  "  La  Raison  et  le  Christiauisme,"  etc. 


AMIEVS  JOURNAL.  185 

an  impression  of  parti  pris.  A  philosophy  of  religion,- 
apart  from  the  comparative  science  of  religions,  and  apart 
also  from  a  disinterested  and  general  philosophy  of  history, 
must  always  be  more  or  less  arbitrary  and  factitious.  It  is 
only  pseudo-scientific,  this  reduction  of  human  life  to  three 
spheres — industry,  law,  and  religion.  The  author  seems 
to  me  to  possess  a  vigorous  and  profound  mind,  rather 
than  a  free  mind.  Not  only  is  he  dogmatic,  but  he 'dogma- 
tizes in  favor  of  a  given  religion,  to  which  his  whole 
allegiance  is  pledged.  Besides,  Christianity  being  an  X 
which  each  church  defines  in  its  own  way,  the  author  takes 
the  same  liberty,  and  defines  the  X  in  his  way ;  so  that  he 
is  at  once  too  free  and  not  free  enough;  too  free  in  respect 
to  historical  Christianity,  not  free  enough  in  respect  to 
Christianity  as  a  particular  church.  He  does  not  satisfy 
the  believing  Anglican,  Lutheran,  Reformed  Churchman^ 
or  Catholic;  and  he  does  not  satisfy  the  freethinker. 
This  Schellingian  type  of  speculation,  which  c6nsists  in 
logically  deducing  a  particular  religion — that  is  to  say,  in 
making  philosophy  the  servant  of  Christian  theology — is  a 
legacy  from  the  Middle  Ages. 

After  belief  comes  judgment;  but  a  believer  is  not  a 
judge.  A  fish  lives  in  the  ocean,  but  it  cannot  see  all 
around  it;  it  cannot  take  a  view  of  the  whole;  therefore  it 
cannot  judge  what  the  ocean  is.  In  order  to  understand 
Christianity  we  must  put  it  in  its  historical  place,  in  its 
proper  framework;  we  must  regard  it  as  a  part  of  the 
religious  development  of  humanity,  and  so  judge  it,  not 
from  a  Christian  point  of  view,  but  from  a  human  point 
of  view,  si7ie  ira  nee  studio. 

December  16,  1868. — I  am  in  the  most  painful  state  of 
anxiety  as  to  my  poor  kind  friend,  Charles  Heim.  .  . 
Since  the  30th  of  November  I  have  had  no  letter  from  the 
dear  invalid,  who  then  said  his  last  farewell  to  me.  How 
long  these  two  weeks  have  seemed  to  me — and  how  keenly 
I  have  realized  that  strong  craving  which  many  feel  for  the 
last  words,  the  last  looks,  of  those  they  love!  Such  words 
eaid  looks  are  a  kind  of  testament.  They  have  a  solemn 


186  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

and  sacred  character  which  is  not  merely  an  effect  of  our 
imagination.  For  that  which  is  on  the  brink  of  death 
already  participates  to  some  extent  in  eternity.  A  dying 
man  seems  to  speak  to  us  from  beyond  the  tomb;  what  he 
says  has  the  effect  upon  us  of  a  sentence,  an  oracle,  an 
injunction;  we  look  upon  him  as  one  endowed  with 
second  sight.  Serious  and  solemn  words  come  naturally 
to  the  hian  who  feels  life  escaping  him,  and  the  grave 
opening  before  him.  The  depths  of  his  nature  are  then 
revealed ;  the  divine  within  him  need  no  longer  hide  itself. 
Oh,  do  not  let  us  wait  to  be  just  or  pitiful  or  demonstra- 
tive toward  those  we  love  until  they  or  we  are  struck  down 
by  illness  or  threatened  with  death !  Life  is  short  and  we 
have  never  too  much  time  for  gladdening  the  hearts  of 
those  who  are  traveling  the  dark  journey  with  us.  Oh, 
be  swift  to  love,  make  haste  to  be  kind ! 

December  26,  1868. — My  dear  friend  died  this  morning 
at  Hy^res.  A  beautiful  soul  has  returned  to  heaven.  So 
he  has  ceased  to  suffer!     Is  he  happy  now? 


If  men  are  always  more  or  less  deceived  on  the  subject 
of  women,  it  is  because  they  forget  that  they  and  women 
do  not  speak  altogether  the  same  language,  and  that 
words  have  not  the  same  weight  or  the  same  meaning  for 
them,  especially  in  questions  of  feeling.  Whether  from 
shyness  or  precaution  or  artifice,  a  woman  never  speaks 
out  her  whole  thought,  and  moreover  what  she  herself 
knows  of  it  is  but  a  part  of  what  it  really  is.  Complete 
frankness  seems  to  be  impossible  to  her,  and  complete 
self-knowledge  seems  to  be  forbidden  her.  If  she  is  a 
sphinx  to  us,  it  is  because  she  is  a  riddle  of  doubtful 
meaning  even  to  herself.  She  has  no  need  of  perfidy,  for 
she  is  mystery  itself.  A  woman  is  something  fugitive, 
irrational,  indeterminable,  illogical,  and  contradictory. 
A  great  deal  of  forbearance  ought  to  be  shown  her,  and  a 
good  deal  of  prudence  exercised  with  regard  to  her,  for 
she  may  bring  about  innumerable  evils  without  knowing 
it.     Capable  of  all  kinds  of  devotion,  and  of  all  kinds  of 


AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL.  187 

treason,  "monstre  incomprehensible,^^  raised  to  the  second 
power,  she  is  at  once  the  deliglit  and  the  terror  of  man. 


The  more  a  man  loves,  the  more  he  suffers.  The  sum 
of  possible  grief  for  each  soul  is  in  proportion  to  its  degree 
of  perfection. 


He  who  is  too  much  afraid  of  being  duped  has  lost  the 
power  of  being  magnanimous. 


Doubt  of  the  reality  of  love  ends  by  making  us  doubt 
everything.  The  final  result  of  all  deceptions  and  dis- 
appointments is  atheism,  which  may  not  always  yield  up 
its  name  and  secret,  but  which  lurks,  a  masked  specter, 
within  the  depths  of  thought,  as  the  last  supreme  ex- 
plainer. "Man  is  what  his  love  is,"  and  follows  the  for- 
tunes of  his  love. 


The  beautiful  souls  of  the  world  have  an  ai  t  of  saintly 
alchemy,  by  which  bitterness  is  converted  into  kindness, 
the  gall  of  human  experience  into  gentleness,  ingratitude 
into  benefits,  insults  into  pardon.  And  the  transforma- 
tion ought  to  become  so  easy  and  habitual  that  the 
lookers-on  may  think  it  spontaneous,  and  nobody  give  us 
credit  for  it. 

January  27,  1869. — What,  then,  is  the  service  rendered 
to  the  world  by  Christianity?  The  proclamation  of  "good 
news."  And  what  is  this  "good  news?  "  The  pardon  of 
sin.  The  God  of  holiness  loving  the  world  and  reconciling 
it  to  himself  by  Jesus,  in  order  to  establish  the  kingdom 
of  God,  the  city  of  souls,  the  life  of  heaven  upon  earth — 
here  you  have  the  whole  of  it;  but  in  this  is  a  revolution. 
"  Love  ye  one  another,  as  I  have  loved  you ; "  "  Be  ye  one 
with  me,  as  I  am  one  with  the  Father : "  for  this  is  lif a 
eternal,  here  is  perfection,  salvation,  joy.  Faith  in  the 
fatherly  love  of  God,  who  punishes  and  pardons  for  our 
good,  and  who  desires  not  the  death  of  the  sinner,  but 
his  conversion  and  his  life — here  is  the  motive  power  of  the 
^redeemed. 


188  AJflEL'S  JOURNAL. 

What  we  call  Christianity  is  a  vast  ocean,  into  which  flow 
a  number  of  spiritual  currents  of  distant  and  various 
origin ;  certain  religions,  that  is  to  say,  of  Asia  and  of 
Europe,  the  great  ideas  of  Greek  wisdom,  and  especially 
those  of  Platonism.  Neither  its  doctrine  nor  its  morality, 
as  they  have  been  historically  developed,  are  new  or  spon- 
taneous. What  is  essential  and  original  in  it  is  the  prac- 
tical demonstration  that  the  human  and  the  divine  nature 
may  co-exist,  may  become  fused  into  one  sublime  flame; 
that  holiness  and  pity,  justice  and  mercy,  may  meet 
together  and  become  one,  in  man  and  in  God.  What  is 
specific  in  Christianity  is  Jesus — the  religious  conscious- 
ness of  Jesus.  The  sacred  sense  of  his  absolute  union  with 
God  through  perfect  love  and  self -surrender,  this  pro- 
found, invincible,  and  tranquil  faith  of  his,  has  become  a 
religion ;  the  faith  of  Jesus  has  become  the  faith  of  mil- 
lions and  millions  of  men.  From  this  torch  has  sprung  a 
vast  conflagration.  And  such  has  been  the  brilliancy  and 
the  radiance  both  of  revealer  and  revelation,  that  the 
astonished  world  has  forgotten  its  justice  in  its  admiration, 
and  has  referred  to  one  single  benefactor  the  whole  of 
those  benefits  which  are  its  heritage  from  the  past. 

The  conversion  of  ecclesiastical  and  confessional  Chris- 
tianity into  historical  Christianity  is  the  work  of  biblical 
science.  The  conversion  of  historical  Christianity  into 
philosophical  Christianity  is  an  attempt  which  is  to  some 
extent  an  illusion,  since  faith  cannot  be  entirely  resolved 
into  science.  The  transference,  however,  of  Christianity 
from  the  region  of  history  to  the  region  of  psychology  is 
the  great  craving  of  our  time.  What  we  are  trying  to 
arrive  at  is  the  eternal  gospel.  But  before  we  can  reach 
it,  the  comparative  history  and  philosophy  of  religions 
must  assign  to  Christianity  its  true  place,  and  must  judge 
it.  The  religion,  too,  which  Jesus  professed  must  be  dis- 
entangled from  the  religion  which  has  taken  Jesus  for  its 
object.  And  when  at  last  we  are  able  to  point  out  the 
state  of  consciousness  which  is  the  primitive  cell,  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  eternal  gospel,  we  shall  have  reached  our  goal, 
for  in  it  is  the  punctum  saliens  of  pure  religion. 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  189 

Perhaps  the  extraordinary  will  take  the  place  of  the 
supernatural,  and  the  great  geniuses  of  the  world  will  come 
to  be  regarded  as  the  messengers  of  God  in  history,  as  the 
providential  revealers  through  whom  the  spirit  of  God 
works  upon  the  human  mass.  What  is  perishing  is  not 
the  admirable  and  the  adorable;  it  is  simply  the  arbitrary, 
the  accidental,  the  miraculous.  Just  as  the  poor  illumina- 
tions of  a  village /e^e,  or  the  tapers  of  a  procession,  are  put 
out  by  the  great  marvel  of  the  sun,  so  the  small  local 
miracles,  with  their  meanness  and  doubtfulness,  will  sink 
into  insignificance  beside  the  law  of  the  world  of  spirits, 
the  incomparable  spectacle  of  human  history,  led  by  that 
all-powerful  Dramaturgus  whom  we  call   God.      Utinam! 

March  1,  1869. — Impartiality  and  objectivity  are  as  rare 
as  justice,  of  which  they  are  but  two  special  forms.  Self- 
interest  is  an  inexhaustible  source  of  convenient  illusions. 
The  number  of  beings  who  wish  to  see  truly  is  extra- 
ordinarily small.  What  governs  men  is  the  fear  of  truth, 
unless  truth  is  useful  to  them,  which  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  self-interest  is  the  principle  of  the  common  philosophy 
or  that  truth  is  made  for  us  but  not  we  for  truth.  As 
this  fact  is  humiliating,  the  majority  of  people  will  neither 
recognize  nor  admit  it.  And  thus  a  prejudice  of  self-love 
protects  all  the  prejudices  of  the  understanding,  which 
are  themselves  the  result  of  a  stratagem  of  the  ego. 
Humanity  has  always  slain  or  persecuted  those  who  have 
disturbed  this  selfish  repose  of  hers.  She  only  improves 
in  spite  of  herself.  The  only  progress  which  she  desires 
is  an  increase  of  enjoyments.  All  advances  in  justice,  in 
morality,  in  holiness,  have  been  imposed  upon  or  forced 
from  her  by  some  noble  violence.  Sacrifice,  which  is  the 
passion  of  great  souls,  has  never  been  the  law  of  societies. 
It  is  too  often  by  employing  one  vice  against  another — for 
example,  vanity  against  cupidity,  greed  against  idleness — 
that  the  great  agitators  have  broken  through  routine.  In 
a  word,  the  human  world  is  almost  entirely  directed  by  the 
law  of  nature,  and  the  law  of  the  spirit,  which  is  the  leaven 
of  its  coarse  paste,  has  but  rarely  succeeded  in  raising  it 
into  generous  expansion. 


190  AMIEU 8  JOURNAL. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  ideal,  humanity  is  Irish 
and  ugly.  But  if  we  compare  it  with  its  probable  origins, 
we  see  that  the  human  race  has  not  altogether  wasted  its 
time.  Hence  there  are  three  possible  views  of  history. 
the  view  of  the  pessimist,  who  starts  from  the  ideal;  the 
view  of  the  optimist,  who  compares  the  past  with  the 
present;  and  the  view  of  the  hero-worshiper,  who  sees 
that  all  progress  whatever  has  cost  oceans  of  blood  and 
•  tears. 

European  hypocrisy  veils  its  face  before  the  voluntary 
suicide  of  those  Indian  fanatics  who  throw  themselves 
under  the  wheels  of  their  goddess'  triumphal  car.  And 
yet  these  sacrifices  are  but  the  symbol  of  what  goes  on  in 
Europe  as  elsewhere,  of  that  offering  of  their  life  which  is 
made  by  the  martyrs  of  all  great  causes.  We  may  even  say 
that  the  fierce  and  sanguinary  goddess  is  humanity  itself, 
which  is  only  spurred  to  progress  by  remorse,  and  repents 
only  when  the  measure  of  its  crimes  runs  over.  The 
fanatics  who  sacrifice  themselves  are  an  eternal  protest 
against  the  universal  selfishness.  We  have  only  overthrown 
those  idols  which  are  tangible  and  visible,  but  perpetual 
sacrifice  still  exists  everywhere,  and  everywhere  the  elite 
of  each  generation  suffers  for  the  salvation  of  the  multi- 
tude. It  is  the  austere,  bitter,  and  mysterious  law  of 
solidarity.  Perdition  and  redemption  in  and  through  each 
other  is  the  destiny  of  men. 

March  18,  1869  {7hursday). — Whenever  I  come  back 
from  a  walk  outside  the  town  I  am  disgusted  and  repelled 
by  this  cell  of  mine.  Out  of  doors,  sunshine,  birds,  spring, 
beauty,  and  life;  in  here,  ugliness,  piles  of  paper,  melan- 
choly, and  death.  And  yet  my  walk  Avas  one  of  the  saddest 
possible.  I  wandered  along  the  Rhone  and  the  Arve,  and 
all  the  memories  of  the  past,  all  the  disappointments  of 
the  present  and  all  the  anxieties  of  the  future  laid  siege 
to  my  heart  like  a  whirlwind  of  phantoms.  I  took 
account  of  my  faults,  and  they  ranged  themselves  in  battle 
against  me.  The  vulture  of  regret  gnawed  at  my  heart, 
and  the  sense  of  the  irreparable  choked  me  like  the  ircKi 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  191 

collar  of  the  pillory.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  failed  in 
the  task  of  life,  and  that  now  life  was  failing  me.  Ah ! 
how  terrible  spring  is  to  the  lonely !  All  the  needs  which 
had  been  lulled  to  sleep  start  into  life  again,  all  the 
sorrows  which  had  disappeared  are  reborn,  and  the  old  man 
which  had  been  gagged  and  conquered  rises  once  more  and 
makes  his  groans  heard.  It  is  as  though  all  the  old 
wounds  opened  and  bewailed  themselves  afresh.  Just 
when  one  had  ceased  to  think,  when  one  had  succeeded  in 
deadening  feeling  by  work  or  by  amusement,  all  of  a 
'Sudden  the  heart,  solitary  captive  that  it  is,  sends  a  cry 
from  its  prison  depths,  a  cry  which  shakes  to  its  founda- 
tions the  whole  surrounding  edifice. 

Even  supposing  that  one  had  freed  one's  self  from  all 
other  fatalities,  there  is  still  one  yoke  left  from  which  it  is 
impossible  to  escape — that  of  Time.  I  have  succeeded  in 
avoiding  all  other  servitudes,  but  I  had  reckoned  without 
the  last — the  servitude  of  age.  Age  comes,  and  its  weight 
is  equal  to  that  of  all  other  oppressions  taken  together. 
Man,  under  his  mortal  aspect,  is  but  a  species  of  ephemera. 

As  I  looked  at  the  banks  of  the  Ehone,  which  have  seen 
the  river  flowing  past  them  some  ten  or  twenty  thousand 
years,  or  at  the  trees  forming  the  avenue  of  the  cemetery, 
which,  foi*  two  centuries,  have  been  the  witnesses  of  so 
many  funeral  processions ;  as  I  recognized  the  walls,  the 
dykes,  the  paths,  which  saw  me  playing  as  a  child,  and 
watched  other  children  running  over  that  grassy  plain  of 
Plain  Palais  which  bore  my  own  childish  steps — I  had  the 
sharpest  sense  of  the  emptiness  of  life  and  the  flight  of 
things.  I  felt  the  shadow  of  the  upas  tree  darkening  over 
me.  I  gazed  into  the  great  implacable  abyss  in  which  are 
swallowed  up  all  those  phantoms  which  call  themselves 
living  beings.  I  saw  that  the  living  are  but  apparitions 
hovering  for  a  moment  over  the  earth,  made  out  of  the 
ashes  of  the  dead,  and  swiftly  re-absorbed  by  eternal  night, 
as  the  will-o'-the-wisp  sinks  into  the  marsh.  The  nothing- 
ness of  our  joys,  the  emptiness  of  our  existence,  and  the 
futility  of  our  ambitious,  filled  me  with  a  quiet  disgust. 


192  AM1EU8  JO  URNAL. 

From  regret  to  disenchantment  I  floated  on  to  Buddhism, 
to  universal  weariness.  Ah,  the  hope  of  a  blessed  immor 
tality  would  be  better  worth  having ! 

With  what  different  eyes  one  looks  at  life  at  ten,  at 
twenty,  at  thirty,  at  sixty!  Those  who  live  alone  are 
epecially  conscious  of  this  psychological  metamorphosis. 
Another  thing,  too,  astonishes  them;  it  is  the  universal 
conspiracy  which  exists  for  hiding  the  sadnoss  of  the 
world,  for  making  men  forget  suffering,  sickness,  and 
death,  for  smothering  the  wails  and  sobs  which  issue  from 
every  house,  for  painting  and  beautifying  the  hideous  face 
of  reality.  Is  it  out  of  tenderness  for  childhood  and 
youth,  or  is  it  simply  from  fear,  that  we  are  thus  careful 
to  veil  the  sinister  truth?  Or  is  it  from  a  sense  of 
equity?  and  does  life  contain  as  much  good  as  evil — per- 
haps more?  However  it  may  be,  men  feed  themselves 
rather  upon  illusion  than  upon  truth.  Each  one  unwinds 
his  own  special  reel  of  hope,  and  as  soon  as  he  has  come  to 
the  end  of  it  he  sits  him  down  to  die,  and  lets  his  sons  and 
his  grandsons  begin  the  same  experience  over  again.  We 
all  pursue  happiness,  and  happiness  escapes  the  pursuit 
of  all. 

The  only  viaticum  which  can  help  us  in  the  journey  ot 
life  is  that  furnished  by  a  great  duty  and  soifie  serious 
affections.  And  even  affections  die,  or  at  least  their 
objects  are  mortal;  a  friend,  a  wife,  a  child,  a  country,  a 
church,  may  precede  us  in  the  tomb ;  duty  alone  lasts  as 
,  long  as  we. 

This  maxim  exorcises  the  spirits  of  revolt,  of  anger,  dis- 
couragement, vengeance,  indignation,  and  ambition,  which 
rise  one  after  another  to  tempt  and  trouble  the  heart, 
swelling  with  the  sap  of  the  spring.  0  all  ye  saints  of  the 
East,  of  antiquity,  of  Christianity,  phalanx  of  heroes!  Ye 
too  drank  deep  of  weariness  and  agony  of  soul,  but  ye 
triumphed  over  both.  Ye  who  have  come  forth  victors 
from  the  strife,  shelter  us  under  your  palms,  fortify  us  by 
your  example ! 
.    April  6,   1869. — Magnificent  weather.      The  Alps  are 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL  193 

dazzling  under  their  silver  haze.  Sensations  oi  ail  kinds 
have  been  crowding  upon  me ;  the  delights  of  a  walk  unaer 
the  rising  sun,  the  charms  of  a  wonderful  view,  longing- 
for  travel,  and  thirst  for  joy,  hunger  for  work,  for  emo- 
tion, for  life,  dreams  of  happiness  and  of  love.  A  passion- 
ate wish  to  live,  to  feel,  to  express,  stirred  the  depttis  of 
my  heart.  It  was  a  sudden  re-awakening  of  youth,  a  flash 
of  poetry,  a  renewing  of  the  soul,  a  fresh  growth  of  the 
wings  of  desire.  I  was  overpowered  by  a  host  of  conquer- 
ing, vagabond,  adventurous  aspirations.  I  forgot  my  age, 
my  obligations,  my  duties,  my  vexations,  and  youth  leaped 
within  me  as  though  life  were  beginning  again.  It  was  as 
though  something  explosive  had  caught  fire,  and  one's 
soul  were  scattered  to  the  four  winds;  in  such  a  mood  one 
would  fain  devour  the  whole  world,  experience  everything, 
see  everything.  Faust's  ambition  enters  into  one,  universal 
desire — a  horror  of  one's  own  prison  cell.  One  throws  oif 
one's  hair  shirt,  and  one  would  fain  gather  the  whole  of 
nature  into  one's  arms  and  heart.  0  ye  passions,  a  ray  of 
sunshine  is  enough  to  rekindle  you  all !  The  cold  black 
mountain  is  a  volcano  once  more,  and  melts  its  snowy 
crown  with  one  single  gust  of  flaming  breath.  It  is  the 
spring  which  brings  about  these  sudden  and  improbable 
resurrections,  the  spring  which,  sending  a  thrill  and 
tumult  of  life  through  all  that  lives,  is  the  parent  of  impet- 
uous desires,  of  overpowering  inclinations,  of  unforeseen 
and  inextinguishable  outbursts  of  passion.  It  breaks 
through  the  rigid  bark  of  the  trees,  and  rends  the  mask 
on  the  face  of  asceticism ;  it  makes  the  monk  tremble  in 
the  shadow  of  his  convent,  the  maiden  behind  the  curtains 
of  her  room,  the  child  sitting  on  his  school  bench,  the  old 
man  bowed  under  his  rheumatism. 

*'  O  Hymen,  Hymensee!  " 

April  24,  1869. — Is  Nemesis  indeed  more  real  than 
Providence,  the  jealous  God  more  true  than  the  good 
God?  grief  more  certain  than  joy?  darkness  more  secure 
of  victory  than  light?    Is  it  pessimism  or  optimism  which 


1*94  AMIEV a  JOURNAL. 

is  nearest  the  truth,  and  which — Leibnitz  or  Schopenhauei 
— has  best  understood  the  universe?  Is  it  the  healthy 
man  or  the  sick  man  who  sees  best  to  the  bottom  of 
things?  which  is  in  the  right? 

Ah !  the  problem  of  grief  and  evil  is  and  will  be  always 
the  greatest  enigma  of  being,  only  second  to  the  exist- 
ence of  being  itself.  The  common  faith  of  humanity  has 
assumed  the  victory  of  good  over  evil.  But  if  good  consists 
not  in  the  result  of  victory,  but  in  victory  itself,  then  good 
implies  an  incessant  and  infinite  contest,  interminable 
struggle,  and  a  success  forever  threatened.  And  if  this 
is  life,  is  not  Buddha  right  in  regarding  life  as  synonymous 
with  evil  since  it  means  perpetual  restlessness  and  endless 
war?  Repose  according  to  the  Buddhist  is  only  to  be  found  in 
annihilation.  The  art  of  self-annihilation,  of  escaping  the 
world's  vast  machinery  of  suffering,  and  the  misery  of 
renewed  existence — the  art  of  reaching  Nirvdna,  is  to  him 
the  supreme  art,  the  only  means  of  deliverance.  The 
Christian  says  to  God:  Deliver  us  from  evil.  The 
Buddhist  adds:  And  to  that  end  deliver  us  from  finite 
existence,  give  us  back  to  nothingness!  The  first  believes 
that  when  he  is  enfranchised  from  the  body  he  will  enter 
upon  eternal  happiness;  the  second  believes  that  individual- 
ity is  the  obstacle  to  all  repose,  and  he  longs  for  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  soul  itself.  The  dread  of  the  first  is  the  paradise 
of  the  second. 

One  thing  only  is  necessary — the  committal  of  the  soul 
to  God.  Look  that  thou  thyself  art  in  order,  and  leave  to 
God  the  task  of  unraveling  the  skein  of  the  world  and  of 
destiny.  What  do  annihilation  or  immortality  matter? 
What  is  to  be,  will  be.  And  what  will  be,  will  be  for  the 
best.  Faith  in  good — perhaps  the  individual  wants 
nothing  more  for  his  passage  through  life.  Only  he  must 
have  taken  sides  with  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  and 
Zeno,  against  materialism,  against  the  religion  of  accident 
and  pessimism.  Perhaps  also  he  must  make  up  his  mind 
against  the  Buddhist  nihilism,  because  a  man's  system  of 
conduct  is  diametrically  opposite  according  as  he  labors  to 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  195 

increase  his  life  or  to  lessen  it,  according  as  he  aims  at 
cultivating  his  faculties  or  at  systematically  deadening 
them. 

To  employ  one's  individual  efforts  for  the  increase  of 
good  in  the  world — this  modest  ideal  is  enough  for  us.  To 
help  forward  the  victory  of  good  has  been  the  common  aim 
of  saints  and  sages.  Socii  Dei  aumus  was  the  word  of 
Seneca,  who  had  it  from  Cleanthus. 

April  30,  1869. — I  have  just  finished  Vacherot's*  book 
"La  Eeligion,"  1869,  and  it  has  set  me  thinking.  I 
have  a  feeling  that  his  notion  of  religion  is  not  rigorous 
and  exact,  and  that  therefore  his  logic  is  subject  to  correc- 
tion. If  religion  is  a  psychological  stage,  anterior  to  that 
of  reason,  it  is  clear  that  it  will  disappear  in  man,  but  if, 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  mode  of  the  inner  life,  it  may  and 
must  last,  as  long  as  the  need  of  feeling,  and  alongside 
the  need  of  thinking.  The  question  is  between  theism  and 
non-theism.  If  God  is  only  the  category  of  the  ideal, 
religion  will  vanish,  of  course,  like  the  illusions  of  youth. 
But  if  Universal  Being  can  be  felt  and  loved  at  the  same 
time  as  conceived,  the  philosopher  may  be  a  religious  man 
just  as  he  may  be  an  artist,  an  orator,  or  a  citizen.  He 
may  attach  himself  to  a  worship  or  ritual  without  deroga- 
tion. I  myself  incline  to  this  solution.  To  me  religion  is 
hfe  before  God  and  in  God. 

And  even  if  God  were  defined  as  the  universal  life,  so 

*  Etienne  Vacberot,  a  French  philosopliical  writer,  who  owed  his 
first  successes  in  life  to  the  friendship  of  Cousin,  and  was  later 
brought  very  much  into  notice  by  his  controversy  with  the  Abbe 
Gratry,  by  the  prosecution  brought  against  him  in  consequence  of 
his  book,  "  La  Democratie  "  (1859),  and  by  his  rejection  at  the  hands  of 
the  Academy  of  Moral  and  Political  Sciences  in  1865,  for  the  same 
kind  of  reasons  which  had  brought  about  the  exclusion  of  Littre  in 
the  preceding  year.  In  1868,  however,  he  became  a  member  of  the 
Institute  in  succession  to  Cousin.  A  Liberal  of  the  old  school,  he 
has  separated  himself  from  the  republicans  since  the  war,  and  has 
made  himself  felt  as  asevere  critic  of  republican  blunders  in  the  Revue 
des  deux  Mondes.  La  Religion,  which  discusses  the  psychological 
origins  of  the  religious  sense,  was  oublished  in  1868. 


198  AMIEU8  JOURNAL. 

long  as  this  life  is  positive  and  not  negative,  the  soul 
penetrated  with  the  sense  of  the  infinite  is  in  the  religious 
state.  Religion  differs  from  philosophy  as  the  simple  and 
spontaneous  self  differs  from  the  reflecting  self,  as  synthetic 
intuition  differs  from  intellectual  analysis.  We  are 
initiated  into  the  religious  state  by  a  sense  of  voluntary 
dependence  on,  and  joyful  submission  to  the  principle  of 
order  and  of  goodness.  Religious  emotion  makes  man 
conscious  of  himself;  he  finds  his  own  place  within  the 
infinite  unity,  and  it  is  this  perception  which  is  sacred. 

But  in  spite  of  these  reservations  I  am  much  impressed 
by  the  book,  which  is  a  fine  piece  of  work,  ripe  and 
serious  in  all  respects. 

May  13,  1869. — A  break  in  the  clouds,  and  through  the 
blue  interstices  a  bright  sun  throws  flickering  and  uncer- 
tain rays.  Storms,  smiles,  whims,  anger,  tears — it  is  May, 
and  nature  is  in  its  feminine  phase!  She  pleases  our  fancy, 
stirs  our  heart,  and  wears  out  our  reason  by  the  endless 
succession  of  her  caprices  and  the  unexpected  violence  of 
her  whims. 

This  recalls  to  me  the  213th  verse  of  the  second  book  of 
the  Laws  of  Manou.  "  It  is  in  the  nature  of  the  feminine 
sex  to  seek  here  below  to  corrupt  men,  and  therefore  wise 
men  never  abandon  themselves  to  the  seductions  of 
women."  The  same  code,  however,  says:  "Wherever 
women  are  honored  the  gods  are  satisfied."  And  again: 
"  In  every  family  where  the  husband  takes  pleasure  in  his 
wife,  and  the  wife  in  her  husband,  happiness  is  ensured." 
And  again:  "One  mother  is  more  venerable  than  a  thous- 
and fathers."  But  knowing  what  stormy  and  irrational 
elements  there  are  in  this  fragile  and  delightful  creature, 
Manou  concludes:  "At  no  age  ought  a  woman  to  be 
allowed  to  govern  herself  as  she  pleases." 

Up  to  the  present  day,  in  several  contemporary  and 
neighboring  codes,  a  woman  is  a  minor  all  her  life.  Why? 
Because  of  her  dependence  upon  nature,  and  of  her  sub- 
jection to  passions  which  are  the  diminutives  of  madness; 
in  other  words,  because  the  soul  of  a  woman  has  some- 


AMIEL'S  JO  URNAL.  197 

thing  obscure  and  mysterious  in  it,  which  lends  itself  to 
all  superstitions  and  weakens  the  energies  of  man.  To 
man  belong  law,  justice,  science,  and  philosophy,  all  that 
is  disinterested,  universal,  and  rational.  Women,  on  the 
contrary,  introduce  into  everything  favor,  exception,  and 
personal  prejudice.  As  soon  as  a  man,  a  people,  a  litera- 
ture, an  epoch,  become  feminine  in  type,  they  sink  in  the 
scale  of  things.  As  soon  as  a  woman  quits  the  state  of 
subordination  in  which  her  merits  have  free  play,  we  see  a 
rapid  increase  in  her  natural  defects.  Complete  equality 
with  man  makes  her  quarrelsome;  a  position  of  supremacy 
makes  her  tyrannical.  To  honor  her  and  to  govern  her 
will  be  for  a  long  time  yet  the  best  solution.  When  educa- 
tion has  formed  strong,  noble,  and  serious  women  in  whom 
conscience  and  reason  hold  sway  over  the  effervescence  of 
fancy  and  sentimentality,  then  we  shall  be  able  not  only 
to  honor  woman,  but  to  make  a  serious  end  of  gaining  her 
consent  and  adhesion.  Then  she  will  be  truly  an  equal, 
a  work-fellow,  a  companion.  At  present  she  is  so  only  in 
theory.  The  moderns  are  at  work  upon  the  problem,  and 
have  not  solved  it  yet. 

June  15, 1869. — The  great  defect  of  liberal  Christianity* 
is  that  its  conception  of  holiness  is  a  frivolous  one,  or,  what 
comes  to  the  same  thing,  its  conception  of  sin  is  a  super- 
ficial one.  The  defects  of  the  baser  sort  of  political 
liberalism  recur  in  liberal  Christianity;  it  is  only  half 
serious,  and  its  theology  is  too  much  mixed  with  worldli- 
ness.  The  sincerely  pious  folk  look  upon  the  liberals  as 
persons  whose  talk  is  rather  profane,  and  who  offend 
religious  feelings  by  making  sacred  subjects  a  theme  for 
rhetorical  display.  They  shock  the  convenances  of  senti- 
ment, and  affront  the  delicacy  of  conscience  by  the  indis- 
creet familiarities  they  take  with  the  great  mysteries  of 
the  inner  life.      They  seem    to  be  mere  clever  special 

•  At  this  period  the  controversy  between  the  orthodox  party  and 
"  Liberal  Christianity "  was  at  'ts  height,  both  in  Geneva  and 
throughout  Switzerland 


398  A  ifJEL'8  JO  URN  A  L. 

pleaders,  religious  rhetoricians  like  the  Greek  sophists, 
rather  than  guides  in  the  narrow  road  which  leads  to 
salvation. 

It  is  not  to  the  clever  folk,  nor  even  to  the  scientific 
folk,  that  the  empire  over  souls  belongs,  but  to  those  who 
impress  us  as  having  conquered  nature  by  grace,  passed 
through  the  burning  bush,  and  as  speaking,  not  the  lan- 
guage of  human  wisdom,  but  that  of  the  divine  will.  In 
religious  matters  it  is  holiness  which  gives  authority;  it  is 
love,  or  the  power  of  devotion  and  sacrifice,  which  goes  to 
the  heart,  which  moves  and  persuades. 

What  all  religious,  poetical,  pure,  and  tender  souls  are 
least  able  to  pardon  is  the  diminution  or  degradation  of 
their  ideal.  We  must  never  rouse  an  ideal  against  us;  our 
business  is  to  point  men  to  another  ideal,  purer,  higher, 
more  spiritual  than  the  old,  and  so  to  raise  behind  a  lofty 
summit  one  more  lofty  still.  In  this  way  no  one  is 
despoiled;  we  gain  men's  confidence,  while  at  the  same 
time  forcing  them  to  think,  and  enabling  those  minds 
which  are  already  tending  toward  change  to  perceive  new 
objects  and  goals  for  thought.  Only  that  which  is  replaced 
is  destroyed,  and  an  ideal  is  only  replaced  by  satisfying  the 
conditions  of  the  old  with  some  advantages  over. 

Let  the  liberal  Protestants  offer  us  a  spectacle  of  Chris- 
tian virtue  of  a  holier,  intenser,  and  more  intimate  kind 
than  before;  let  us  see  it  active  in  their  persons  and  in 
their  influence,  and  they  will  have  furnished  the  proof 
demanded  by  the  Master ;  the  tree  will  be  judged  by  its 
fruits. 


June  22,  1869  {Nine  k.  m). — Gray  and  lowering 
weather.  A  fly  lies  dead  of  cold  on  the  page  of  my  book, 
in  full  summer!  What  is  life?  I  said  to  myself,  as  I 
looked  at  the  tiny  dead  creature.  It  is  a  loan,  as  move- 
ment is.  The  universal  life  is  a  sum  total,  of  which  the 
units  are  visible  here,  there,  and  everywhere,  just  as  an 
electric  wheel  throws  off  sparks  along  its  whole  surface. 
Life    passes  through  ns;   we  do  not  possess  it.      Hira 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  199 

admits  three  ultimate  principles:*  the  atom,  the  force, 
the  soul ;  the  force  which  acts  upon  atoms,  the  soul  which 
acts  upon  force.    Probably  he  distinguishes  between  anony 
mous  souls  and  personal  souls.     Then  my  fly  would  be  an 
anonymous  soul. 

{Same  day). — The  national  churches  are  all  up  in  arms 
against  so-called  Liberal  Christianity;  Basle  and  Zurich 
began  the  fight,  and  now  Geneva  has  entered  the  lists  too. 
Gradually  it  is  becoming  plain  that  historical  Protestantism 
has  no  longer  a  raison  d^etre  between  pure  liberty  and 
pure  authority.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  provisional  stage,  founded 
on  the  worship  of  the  Bible — that  is  to  say,  on  the  idea  of 
a  written  revelation,  end  of  a  book  divinely  inspired,  and 
therefore  authoritative.  When  once  this  thesis  has  been 
relegated  to  the  rank  of  a  fiction  Protestantism  crumbles 
away.  There  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  retire  upon  natural 
religion,  or  the  religion  of  the  moral  consciousness.  M.  M. 
Reville,  Coquerel,  Fontan§s,  Buisson,f  accept  this  logical 
outcome.  They  are  the  advance-guard  of  Protestantism 
und  the  laggards  of  free  thought. 

Their  mistake  is  in  not  seeing  that  all  institutions  rest 
upon  a  legal  fiction,  and  that  every  living  thing  involves 

*  Qustave-Adolphe  Him,  a  French  physicist,  born  near  Cohnar, 
1815,  became  a  corresponding  member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  in 
1867.  The  book  of  his  to  which  Amiel  refers  is  no  doubt  Conse- 
quences philosophiques  et  metaphysiques  de  la  thermodyaamique. 
Analyse  elementaire  de  Vunivers  (1869). 

f  The  name  of  M.  Albert  Reville,  the  French  Protestant  theologian, 
is  more  or  less  familiar  in  England,  especially  since  his  delivery  of 
the  Hibbert  lectures  in  1884.  Athanase  Coquerel,  born  1820,  died 
1876,  the  well-known  champion  of  liberal  ideas  in  the  French 
Protestant  Church,  was  suspended  from  his  pastoral  functions  by 
the  Consistory  of  Paris,  on  account  of  his  review  of  M.  Kenan's 
"  Vie  de  Jesus  "  in  1864.  Ferdinand-Edouard  Buisson,  a  liberal  Protes- 
tant, originally  a  professor  at  Lausanne,  was  raised  to  the  important 
functions  of  Director  of  Primary  Instruction  by  M.  Ferry  in  1879. 
He  was  denounced  by  Bishop  Dupanloup,  in  the  National  Assembly 
of  1871,  as  the  author  of  certain  liberal  pamphlets  on  the  dangers 
connected  with  Scripture-teaching  in  schools,  and,  for  the  time,  lost 
his  employmeni  under  the  Ministry  of  Education. 


200  AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL. 

a  logical  absurdity.  It  may  be  logical  to  demaiid  a  church 
based  on  free  examinjition  and  absolute  sincerity ;  but  to 
realize  it  is  a  different  matter.  A  church  lives  by  what  is 
positive,  and  this  positive  element  necessarily  limits  inves- 
tigation. People  confound  the  right  of  the  individual, 
which  is  to  be  free,  with  the  duty  of  the  institution,  which 
is  to  be  something.  They  take  the  principle  of  science  to 
be  the  same  as  the  principle  of  the  church,  which  is  a 
m  ^itake.  They  will  not  see  that  religion  is  different  from 
plrilosophy,  and  that  the  one  seeks  union  by  faith,  while  the 
other  upholds  the  solitary  independence  of  thought.  That 
ihe  bread  should  be  good  it  must  have  leaven ;  but  the 
leaven  is  not  the  bread.  Liberty  is  the  means  whereby 
we  arrive  at  an  enlightened  faith — granted;  but  an  assem- 
bly of  people  agreeing  only  upon  this  criterion  and  this 
method  couid  not  possibly  found  a  church,  for  they  might 
differ  completely  as  to  the  results  of  the  method.  Sup- 
pose a  newspaper  the  writers  of  which  were  of  all  possible 
parties — it  would  no  doubt  be  a  curiosity  in  journalism, 
but  it  would  have  no  opinions,  no  faith,  no  creed.  A 
drawing-room  filled  with  refined  people,  carrying  on  polite 
discussion,  is  not  a  church,  and  a  dispute,  however  cour- 
teous, is  not  worship.     It  is  a  mere  confusion  of  kinds. 

July  13,  1869. — Lamennais,  Heine — the  one  the  victim 
of  a  mistaken  vocation,  the  other  of  a  tormenting  craving 
to  astonish  and  mystify  his  kind.  The  first  was  wanting 
in  common  sense;  the  second  was  wanting  in  seriousness. 
The  Frenchman  was  violent,  arbitrary,  domineering;  the 
German  was  a  jesting  Mephistopheles,  with  a  horror  of 
Philistinism.  The  Breton  was  all  passion  and  melancholy; 
the  Hamburger  all  fancy  and  satire.  Neither  developed 
freely  nor  normally.  Both  of  them,  because  of  an  initial 
mistake,  threw  themselves  into  an  endless  quarrel  with 
the  world.  Both  were  revolutionists.  They  were  not 
fighting  for  the  good  cause,  for  impersonal  truth;  both 
were  rather  the  champions  of  their  own  pride.  Both 
suffered  greatly,  and  died  isolated,  repudiated,  and  reviled. 
Men  of  magnificent  talents,  both  of    them,   but  men  of 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  201 

small  wisdom,  who  did  more  harm  than  good  to  themselves 
and  to  others!  It  is  a  lamentable  existence  which  wears 
itself  out  in  maintaining  a  first  antagonism,  or  a  first 
blunder.  The  greater  a  man's  intellectual  power,  the 
more  dangerous  is  it  for  him  to  make  a  false  start  and  to 
begin  life  badly. 

July  20,  1869. — I  have  been  reading  over  again  five  or 
six  chapters,  here  and  there,  of  Kenan's  "St.  Paul."  An- 
alyzed to  the  bottom,  the  writer  is  a  freethinker,  but  a  free 
thinker  whose  flexible  imagination  still  allows  him  the  deli- 
cate epicurism  of  religious  emotion.  In  his  eyes  the  man 
who  will  not  lend  himself  to  these  graceful  fancies  is  vul- 
gar, and  the  man  who  takes  them  seriously  is  prejudiced. 
He  is  entertained  by  the  variations  of  conscience,  but  he  is 
too  clever  to  laugh  at  them.  The  true  critic  neither  con- 
cludes nor  excludes;  his  pleasure  is  to  understand  without 
believing,  and  to  profit  by  the  results  of  enthusiasm,  while 
still  maintaining  a  free  mind,  unembarrassed  by  illusion. 
Such  a  mode  of  proceeding  has  a  look  of  dishonesty;  it  is 
nothing,  however,  but  the  good-tempered  irony  of  a 
highly-cultivated  mind,  which  will  neither  be  ignorant  of 
anything  nor  duped  by  anything.  It  is  the  dilettantism 
of  the  Renaissance  in  its  perfection.  At  the  same  time 
what  innumerable  proofs  of  insight  and  of  exultant 
scientific  power ! 

August  14,  1869.— In  the  name  of  heaven,  who  art  thou? 
what  wilt  thou — wavering  inconstant  creature?  What 
future  lies  before  thee?  What  duty  or  what  hope  appeals 
to  thee? 

My  longing,  my  search  is  for  love,  for  peace,  for  some- 
thing to  fill  my  heart ;  an  idea  to  defend ;  a  work  to  which 
I  might  devote  the  rest  of  my  strength;  an  affection  which 
might  quench  this  inner  thirst ;  a  cause  for  which  I  might 
die  with  joy.  But  shall  I  ever  find  them?  I  long  for  all 
that  is  impossible  and  inaccessible:  for  true  religion, 
serious  sympathy,  the  ideal  life;  for  paradise,  immortality, 
holiness,  faith,  inspiration,  and  I  know  not  what  besides! 
What  I  really  want  is  to  die  and  to  be  born  again,  trans- 


202  AMJEL'8  JOURNAL. 

formed  myself,  and  in  a  different  world.  And  I  can 
neither  stifle  these  aspirations  nor  deceive  myself  as  to  the 
possibility  of  satisfying  them.  I  seem  condemned  to  roll 
forever  the  rock  of  Sisyphus,  and  to  feel  that  slow  wear- 
ing away  of  the  mind  which  befalls  the  man  whose  voca- 
tion and  destiny  are  in  perpetual  conflict.  "  A  Christian 
heart  and  a  pagan  head,"  like  Jacobi;  tenderness  and 
pride ;  width  of  mind  and  feebleness  of  will ;  the  two  men 
of  St.  Paul;  a  seething  chaos  of  contrasts,  antinomies, 
and  contradictions;  humility  and  pride;  childish  simplicity 
and  boundless  mistrust;  analysis  and  intuition;  patience 
and  irritability;  kindness  and  dryness  of  heart ;  carelessness 
and  anxiety;  enthusiasm  and  languor;  indifference  and 
passion ;  altogether  a  being  incomprehensible  and  intoler- 
able to  myself  and  to  others ! 

Then  from  a  state  of  conflict  I  fall  back  into  the  fluid, 
vague,  indeterminate  state,  which  feels  all  form  to  be  a 
mere  violence  and  disfigurement.  All  ideas,  principles^ 
acquirements,  and  habits  are  effaced  in  me  like  the  ripples 
on  a  wave,  like  the  convolutions  of  a  cloud.  My  personal- 
ity has  the  least  possible  admixture  of  individuality.  I 
»m  to  the  great  majority  of  men  what  the  circle  is  to  rectili- 
near figures;  I  am  everywhere  at  home,  because  I  have  no 
particular  and  nominative  self.  Perhaps,  on  the  whole, 
this  defect  has  good  in  it.  Though  I  am  less  of  a  man,  I 
am  perhaps  nearer  to  the  man ;  perhaps  rather  more  man. 
There  is  less  of  the  individual,  but  more  of  the  species,  in 
me.  My  nature,  which  is  absolutely  unsuited  for  practical 
life,  shows  great  aptitude  for  psychological  study.  It 
prevents  me  from  taking  sides,  but  it  allows  me  to  under- 
stand all  sides.  It  is  not  only  indolence  which  prevents 
me  from  drawing  conclusions;  it  is  a  sort  of  a  secret  aver- 
sion to  all  intellectual  proscription.  I  have  a  feeling  that 
something  of  everything  is  wanted  to  make  a  world,  that 
all  citizens  have  a  right  in  the  state,  and  that  if  every 
opinion  is  equally  insignificant  in  itself,  all  opinions  have 
some  hold  upon  truth.  To  live  and  let  live,  think  and 
\di  think,  are  maxims  which  are  equallv  dear  to  me.     My 


AMtnVS  JOURNAL.  205 

tendency  is  alv^ays  to  the  whole,  to  the  totality,  to  the 
general  balance  of  things.  What  is  difficult  to  me  is  to 
exclude,  to  condemn,  to  say  no;  except,  indeed,  in  the 
presence  of  the  exclusive.  I  am  always  fighting  for  the 
absent,  for  the  defeated  cause,  for  that  portion  of  truth 
which  seems  to  me  neglected;  my  aim  is  to  complete  every 
thesis,  to  see  round  every  problem,  to  study  a  thing  from- 
all  its  possible  sides.  Is  this  skepticism?  Yes,  in  its  result, 
but  not  in  its  purpose.  It  is  rather  the  sense  of  the  abso- 
lute and  the  infinite  reducing  to  their  proper  value  and 
relegating  to  their  proper  place  the  finite  and  the  relative. 
But  here,  in  the  same  way,  my  ambition  is  greater  than 
my  power;  my  philosophical  perception  is  superior  to  my 
speculative  gift.  I  have  not  the  energy  of  my  opinions^ 
I  have  far  greater  width  than  inventiveness  of  thought, 
and,  from  timidity,  I  have  allowed  the  critical  intelligence 
in  me  to  swallow  up  the  creative  genius.  Is  it  indeed 
from  timidity? 

Alas!  with  a  little  more  ambition,  or  a  little  more  good 
luck,  a  different  man  might  have  been  made  out  of  me, 
and  such  as  my  youth  gave  promise  of. 

August  16,  1869. — I  have  been  thinking  over  Schopen- 
hauer. It  has  struck  me  and  almost  terrified  me  to  see 
how  well  I  represent  Schopenhauer's  typical  man,  for 
whom  "happiness  is  a  chimera  and  suffering  a  reality," 
for  whom  "  the  negation  of  will  and  of  desire  is  the  only 
road  to  deliverance,"  and  "the  individual  life  is  a  misfor- 
tune from  which  impersonal  contemplation  is  the  only 
enfranchisement,"  etc.  But  the  principle  that  life  is  an 
evil  and  annihilation  a  good  lies  at  the  root  of  the  system, 
and  this  axiom  I  have  never  dared  to  enunciate  in  any 
general  way,  although  I  have  admitted  it  here  and  there 
in  individual  cases.  What  I  still  like  in  the  misanthrope 
of  Frankfort,  is  his  antipathy  to  current  prejudice,  to 
European  hobbies,  to  western  hypocrisies,  to  the  successes 
of  the  day.  Schopenhauer  is  a  man  of  powerful  mind, 
who  has  put  away  from  him  all  illusions,  who  professes 
Buddhism  in  the  full  flow  of  modern  Germany,  and  abso- 


204  -A.  MI  EL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

lute  detachment  of  mind  in  the  very  midst  of  the  nine* 
teenth-century  orgie.  His  great  defects  are  barrenness  oi 
soul,  a  proud  and  perfect  selfishness,  an  adoration  of 
genius  which  is  combined  with  complete  indifference  to 
the  rest  of  the  world,  in  spite  of  all  his  teaching  of  resigna- 
tion and  sacrifice.  He  has  no  sympathy,  no  humanity,  no 
love.  And  here  I  recognize  the  unlikeness  between  us. 
Pure  intelligence  and  solitary  labor  might  easily  lead  me  to 
his  point  of  view ;  but  once  appeal  to  the  heart,  and  I  feel 
the  contemplative  attitude  untenable.  Pity,  goodness, 
charity,  and  devotion  reclaim  theii  rights,  and  insist  even 
npon  the  first  place. 

August  29,  1869. — Schopenhauer  preaches  imperson- 
ality, objectivity,  pure  contemplation,  the  negation  of  will, 
calmness,  and  disinterestedness,  an  aesthetic  study  of  the 
world,  detachment  from  life,  the  renunciation  of  all  desire, 
solitary  meditation,  disdain  of  the  crowd,  and  indifference 
to  all  that  the  vulgar  covet.  He  approves  all  my  defects, 
my  childishness,  my  aversion  to  practical  life,  my  antipathy 
to  the  utilitarians,  my  distrust  of  all  desire.  In  a  word, 
he  flatters  all  my  instincts;  he  caresses  and  justifies  them. 

This  pre-established  harmony  between  the  theory  of 
Schopenhauer  and  my  own  natural  man  causes  me  pleasure 
mingled  with  terror.  I  might  indulge  myself  in  the 
pleasure,  but  that  I  fear  to  delude  and  stifle  conscience. 
Besides,  I  feel  that  goodness  has  no  tolerance  for  this 
contemplative  indifference,  and  that  virtue  consists  in  self- 
conquest. 

August  30,  1869. — Still  some  chapters  of  Schopenhauer. 
Schopenhauer  believes  in  the  unchangeableness  of  innate 
tendencies  in  the  individual,  and  in  the  invariability  of  the 
primitive  disposition.  He  refuses  to  believe  in  the  new 
man,  in  any  real  progress  toward  perfection,  or  in  any  posi- 
tive improvement  in  a  human  being.  Only  the  appear- 
ances are  refined;  there  is  no  change  below  the  surface. 
Perhaps  he  confuses  temperament,  character,  and  indi- 
viduality? I  incline  to  think  that  individuality  is  fatal 
and  primitive,  that  temperament  reaches  far  back,  but  is 


A  M I  EL'S  JO  XTRNAL.  205 

alternable,  and  that  character  is  more  recent  and  susceptible 
of  voluntary  or  involuntary  modifications.  Individuality 
is  a  matter  of  psychology,  temperament,  a  matter  of  sensa- 
tion or  aesthetics;  character  alone  is  a  matter  of  morals. 
Liberty  and  the  use  of  it  count  for  nothing  in  the  first 
two  elements  of  our  being;  character  is  a  historical  fruit, 
and  the  result  of  a  man's  biography.  For  Schopenhauer, 
character  is  identified  with  temperament  just  as  will  with 
passion.  In  short,  he  simplifies  too  much,  and  looks  at 
man  from  that  more  elementary  point  of  view  which  is 
only  sufficient  in  the  case  of  the  animal.  That  spontaneity 
which  is  vital  or  merely  chemical  he  already  calls  will. 
Analogy  is  not  equation;  a  comparison  is  not  reason^ 
similes  and  parables  are  not  exact  language.  Many  of 
Schopenhauer's  originalities  evaporate  when  we  come  ta 
translate  them  into  a  more  close  and  precise  terminology. 

Later. — One  has  merely  to  turn  over  the  "Licht- 
strahlem  "  of  Herder  to  feel  the  difference  between  him  and 
Schopenhauer.  The  latter  is  full  of  marked  features  and 
of  observations  which  stand  out  from  the  page  and  leave  a 
clear  and  vivid  impression.  Herder  is  much  less  of  a 
writer;  his  ideas  are  entangled  in  his  style,  and  he  has  no 
brilliant  condensations,  no  jewels,  no  crystals.  While  he 
proceeds  by  streams  and  sheets  of  thought  which  have  no 
definite  or  individual  outline,  Schopenhauer  breaks  the 
current  of  his  speculation  with  islands,  striking,  original, 
and  picturesque,  which  engrave  themselves  in  the  memory. 
It  is  the  same  difference  as  there  is  between  Nicole  and 
Pascal,  between  Bayle  and  Satin-Simon. 

What  is  the  faculty  which  gives  relief,  brilliancy,  and 
incisiveness  to  thought?  Imagination.  Under  its  influ- 
ence expression  becomes  concentrated,  colored, and  strength- 
ened, and  by  the  power  it  has  of  individualizing  all  it 
touches,  it  gives  life  and  permanence  to  the  material  on 
which  it  works.  A  writer  of  genius  changes  sand  into  glass 
and  glass  into  crystal,  ore  into  iron  and  iron  into  steely 
he  marks  with  his  own  stamp  every  idea  he  gets  hold  of. 
He  borrows  much  from  the  common  stock,  and  gives  back 


206  A  MI  EL'S  JO  URNAL. 

nothing;  but  even  his  robberies  are  willingly  reckoned  to 
him  as  private  property.  He  has,  as  it  were,  carte  blanche^ 
and  public  opinion  allows  him  to  take  what  he  will. 

August  31,  1869. — I  have  finished  Schopenhauer.  My 
mind  has  been  a  tumult  of  opposing  systems — Stoicism, 
Quietism,  Buddhism,  Christianity.  Shall  I  never  be  at 
peace  with  myself?  If  impersonality  is  a  good,  why  am  I 
not  consistent  in  the  pursuit  of  it?  and  if  it  is  a  tempta- 
tion, why  return  to  it,  after  having  judged  and  con- 
quered it? 

Is  happiness  anything  more  than  a  conventional  fiction? 
The  deepest  reason  for  my  state  of  doubt  is  that  the 
supreme  end  and  aim  of  life  seems  to  me  a  mere  lure  and 
deception.  The  individual  is  an  eternal  dupe,  who  never 
obtains  what  he  seeks,  and  who  is  forever  deceived  by 
hope.  My  instinct  is  in  harmony  with  the  pessimism  of 
Buddha  and  of  Schopenhauer.  It  is  a  doubt  which  never 
leaves  me  even  in  my  moments  of  religious  fervor.  Nature 
is  indeed  for  me  a  Maia;  and  I  look  at  her,  as  it  were, 
with  the  eyes  of  an  artist.  My  intelligence  remains  skep- 
tical. What,  then,  do  I  believe  in?  I  do  not  know.  And 
what  is  it  I  hope  for?  It  would  be  difficult  to  say.  Folly! 
I  believe  in  goodness,  and  I  hope  that  good  will  prevail. 
Deep  within  this  ironical  and  disappointed  being  of  mine 
there  is  a  child  hidden — a  frank,  sad,  simple  creature,  who 
believes  in  the  ideal,  in  love,  in  holiness,  and  all  heavenly 
superstitions.  A  whole  millennium  of  idylls  sleeps  in  my 
heart ;  I  am  a  pseudo-skeptic,  a  pseudo-scoffer. 

•*  BornS  dans  sa  nature,  infini  dans  ses  vceux, 
L'homme  est  un  dieu  tombe  qui  se  souvient  des  cieux." 

October  14,  1869. — Yesterday,  Wednesday,  death  of 
Sainte  Beuve.     What  a  loss ! 

October  16,  1869. — Lahoremus  seems  to  have  been  the 
motto  of  Sainte-Beuve,  as  it  was  that  of  Septimius  Sererus. 
He  died  in  harness,  and  up  to  the  evening  before  his  last 
day  he  still  wrote,  overcoming  the  sufferings  of  the  body 


AMIEDS  JOURNAL.  207 

by  the  energy  of  the  mind.  To-day,  at  this  very  moment^ 
they  are  laying  him  in  the  bosom  of  mother  earth.  He 
refused  the  sacraments  of  the  church ;  he  never  belonged 
to  any  confession ;  he  was  one  of  the  "  great  diocese  " — 
that  of  the  independent  seekers  of  truth,  and  he  allowed 
himself  no  final  moment  of  hypocrisy.  He  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  one  except  God  only — or  rather 
the  mysterious  Isis  beyond  the  veil.  Being  unmarried,  he 
died  in  the  arms  of  his  secretary.  He  was  sixty-five  years 
old.  His  power  of  work  and  of  memory  was  immense  and 
intact.  What  is  Scherer  thinking  about  this  life  and  this 
death? 

October  19,  1869. — An  admirable  article  by  Edmond 
Scherer  on  Sainte-Beuve  in  the  Temps.  He  makes  him 
the  prince  of  French  critics  and  the  last  representative  of 
the  epoch  of  literary  taste,  the  future  belonging  to  the 
bookmakers  and  the  chatterers,  to  mediocrity  and  to 
violence.  The  article  breathes  a  certain  manly  melan- 
choly, befitting  a  funeral  oration  over  one  who  was  a  mas- 
ter in  the  things  of  the  mind.  The  fact  is,  that  Sainte- 
Beuve  leaves  a  greater  void  behind  him  than  either 
Beranger  or  Lamartine;  their  greatness  was  already  dis- 
tant, historical ;  he  was  still  helping  us  to  think.  The  true 
critic  acts  as  a  fulcrum  for  all  the  world.  He  represents 
the  public  judgment,  that  is  to  say  the  public  reason,  the 
touchstone,  the  scales,  the  refining  rod,  which  tests  the 
value  of  every  one  and  the  merit  of  every  work.  Infalli- 
bility of  judgment  is  perhaps  rarer  than  anything  else,  so 
fine  a  balance  of  qualities  does  it  demand — qualities  both 
natural  and  acquired,  qualities  of  mind  and  heart.  What 
years  of  labor,  what  study  and  comparison,  are  needed  to 
bring  the  critical  judgment  to  maturity!  Like  Plato's 
sage,  it  is  only  at  fifty  that  the  critic  rises  to  the  true 
height  of  his  literary  priesthood,  or,  to  put  it  less 
pompously,  of  his  social  function.  By  then  only  can  he 
hope  for  insight  into  all  the  modes  of  being,  and  for  mas- 
tery of  all  possible  shades  of  appreciation.  And  Sainte 
Beuve  joined  to  this  infinitely  refined  culture  a  prodigious 


208  AMIKUS  JOURNAL. 

memor}',  and  an  incredible  multitude  of  facts  and  anecdotea 
stored  up  for  the  service  of  his  thought. 

December  8,  1869. — Everything  has  chilled  me  this 
morning;  the  cold  of  the  season,  the  physical  immobility 
around  me,  but,  above  all,  Hartman's  "Philosophy  of  the 
Unconscious."  This  book  lays  down  the  terrible  thesis 
that  creation  is  a  mistake;  being,  such  as  it  is,  is  not  as 
good  as  non-being,  and  death  is  better  than  life. 

I  felt  the  same  mournful  impression  that  Obermann  left 
upon  me  in  my  youth.  The  black  melancholy  of  Bud- 
dhism encompassed  and  overshadovk^ed  me.  If,  in  fact,  it 
is  only  illusion  which  hides  from  us  the  horror  of  existence 
and  makes  life  tolerable  to  us,  then  existence  is  a  snare 
and  life  an  evil.  Like  the  Greek  Annikeris,  we  ought  to 
counsel  suicide,  or  rather  with  Buddha  and  Schopenhauer 
we  ought  to  labor  for  the  radical  extirpation  of  hope  and 
desire — the  causes  of  life  and  resurrection.  Not  to  rise 
again;  there  is  the  point,  and  there  is  the  difficulty. 
Death  is  simply  a  beginning  again,  whereas  it  is  annihila- 
tion that  we  have  to  aim  at.  Personal  consciousness  being 
the  root  of  all  our  troubles,  we  ought  to  avoid  the  tempta- 
tion to  it  and  the  possibility  of  it  as  diabolical  and  abomi- 
nable. What  blasphemy!  And  yet  it  is  all  logical;  it  is 
the  philosophy  of  happiness  carried  to  its  farthest  point. 
Epicurism  must  end  in  despair.  The  philosophy  of  duty 
is  less  depressing.  But  salvation  lies  in  the  conciliation  of 
duty  and  happiness,  in  the  union  of  the  individual  will 
with  the  divine  will,  and  in  the  faith  that  this  supreme 
will  is  directed  by  love. 


It  is  as  true  that  real  happiness  is  good,  as  that  the  good 
become  better  under  the  purification  of  trial.  Those  who 
have  not  suffered  are  still  wanting  in  depth ;  but  a  man 
who  has  not  got  happiness  cannot  impart  it.  We  can  only 
give  what  we  have.  Happiness,  grief,  gayety,  sadness,  are 
by  nature  contagious.  Bring  your  health  and  your 
strength  to  the  weak  and  sickly,  and  so  you  will  be  of  use 
to  them.     Give  them,  not  jour  weakness,  but  your  energy, 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  2b. 

BO  you  will  revive  and  lift  them  up.  Life  alone  can 
rekindle  life.  What  others  claim  from  us  is  not  our  thirst 
and  our  hunger,  but  our  bread  and  our  gourd. 

The  benefactors  of  humanity  are  those  who  have  thought 
great  thoughts  about  her;  but  her  masters  and  her  idols 
are  those  who  have  flattered  and  despised  her,  those  who 
have  muzzled  and  massacred  her,  inflamed  her  with 
fanaticism  or  used  her  for  selfish  purposes.  Her  bene- 
factors are  the  poets,  the  artists,  the  inventors,  the  apostles 
and  all  pure  hearts.  Her  masters  are  the  Caesars,  the 
Constan tines,  the  Gregory  VII. 's,  the  Innocent  III.'s,  the 
Borgias,  the  Napoleons. 


Every  civilization  is,  as  it  were,  a  dream  of  a  thousand 
years,  in  which  heaven  and  earth,  nature  and  history, 
appear  to  men  illumined  by  fantastic  light  and  represent- 
ing a  drama  which  is  nothing  but  a  projection  of  the  soul 
itself,  influenced  by  some  intoxication — I  was  going  to  say 
hallucination — or  other.  Those  who  are  widest  awake 
still  see  the  real  world  across  the  dominant  illusion  of  their 
race  or  time.  And  the  reason  is  that  the  deceiving  light 
starts  from  our  own  mind :  the  light  is  our  religion.  Every- 
thing changes  with  it.  It  is  religion  which  gives  to  our 
kaleidoscope,  if  not  the  material  of  the  figures,  at  least 
their  color,  their  light  and  shade,  and  general  aspect. 
Every  religion  makes  men  see  the  world  and  humanity 
under  a  special  light;  it  is  a  mode  of  apperception,  which 
can  only  be  scientifically  handled  when  we  have  cast  it 
aside,  and  can  only  be  judged  when  we  have  replaced  it 
by  a  better. 


February  23,  1870. — There  is  in  man  an  instinct  of 
revolt,  an  enemy  of  all  law,  a  rebel  which  will  stoop  to  no 
yoke,  not  even  that  of  reason,  duty,  and  wisdom.  This 
element  in  us  is  the  root  of  all  sin — das  radicale  Bose  of 
Kant.  The  independence  which  is  the  condition  of  indi- 
viduality is  at  the  same  time  the  eternal  temptation  of  the 
individual.  That  which  makes  us  beings  makes  us  also 
sinners. 


-2 1 0  AMIEV8  JO  URNAL. 

Sin  is,  then,  in  our  very  marrow,  it  circulates  in  us  like 
the  blood  in  our  veins,  it  is  mingled  with  all  our  substance.* 
Or  rather  1  am  wrong:  temptation  is  our  natural  state, 
but  sin  is  not  necessary.  Sin  consists  in  the  voluntary 
confusion  of  the  independence  which  is  good  with  the 
independence  which  is  bad;  it  is  caused  by  the  half-indul 
gence  granted  to  a  first  sophism.  We  shut  our  eyes  to  the 
beginnings  of  evil  because  they  are  small,  and  in  this 
weakness  is  contained  the  germ  of  our  defeat.  Principiis 
vbsta — this  maxim  dutifully  followed  would  preserve  us 
from  almost  all  our  catastrophes. 

We  will  have  no  other  master  but  our  caprice — that  is 
to  say,  our  evil  self  will  have  no  God,  and  the  foundation 
of  our  nature  is  seditious,  impious,  insolent,  refractory, 
opposed  to,  and  contemptuous  of  all  that  tries  to  rule  it, 

*  This  is  one  of  tbe  passages  which  rouses  M.  Renan's  wonder. 
"  Voila  la  grande  difEerence,"  he  writes,  "  entre  I'education  catho- 
lique  et  I'education  protestante.  Ceux  qui  comme  moi  ont  re(ju  une 
education  catholique  en  ont  garde  de  profonds  vestiges.  Mais  ces 
vestiges  ne  sont  pas  des  dogmes,  ce  sont  des  reves.  Uuefois  ce  grand 
rideau  de  drap  d'or,  bariole  de  soie,  d'indienne  et  de  calicot,  par 
lequel  le  catholicisme  nous  masque  la  vue  du  monde,  une  fois,  dis-je 
ce  rideau  dechire,  on  voit  I'univers  en  sa  splendeur  infinie,  la  nature 
en  sa  haute  et  pleine  majeste.  Le  protestant  le  plus  libre  garde 
souvent  quelque  chose  de  triste,  un  fond  d'austferite  intellectuelle 
analogue  au  pessimisme  slave." — {Journal  des  DSbati,  September  30, 
1884). 

One  is  reminded  of  Mr.  Morley's  criticism  of  Emerson.  Emerson, 
he  points  out,  has  almost  nothing  to  say  of  death,  and  "  little  to  say 
of  that  horrid  burden  and  impediment  on  the  soul  which  the 
churches  call  sin,  and  which,  by  whatever  name  we  call  it,  is  a  very 
real  catastrophe  in  the  moral  nature  of  man — the  courses  of  nature, 
and  the  prodigious  injustices  of  man  in  society  affect  him  with 
neither  horror  nor  awe.  He  will  see  no  monster  if  he  can  help 
it." 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  eternal  difference  between  the  two  orders 
of  temperament — the  men  whose  overflowing  energy  forbids  them  to 
realize  the  ever-recurring  defeat  of  the  human  spirit  at  the  hands  of 
circumstance,  like  Renan  and  Emerson,  and  the  men  for  whom 
*'  horror  and  awe  "  are  interwoven  with  exDerience,  like  Amiel. 


AMIEV 8  JOURNAL.  2H 

and  therefore  contrary  to  order,  ungovernable  and  nega- 
tive. It  is  this  foundation  which  Christianity  calls  the 
natural  man.  But  the  savage  which  is  within  us,  and  con- 
stitutes the  primitive  stuff  of  us,  must  be  disciplined  and 
civilized  in  order  to  produce  a  man.  And  the  man  must 
be  patiently  cultivated  to  produce  a  wise  man,  and  the 
wise  man  must  be  tested  and  tried  if  he  is  to  become 
righteous.  And  the  righteous  man  must  have  substituted 
the  will  of  God  for  his  individual  will,  if  he  is  to  become  a 
saint.  And  this  new  man,  this  regenerate  being,  is  the 
spiritual  man,  the  heavenly  man,  of  which  the  Vedas 
speak  as  well  as  the  gospel,  and  the  Magi  as  well  as  the 
Neo-Platonists. 

March  17,  1870. — This  morning  the  music  of  a  brass 
band  which  had  stopped  under  my  windows  moved  me 
almost  to  tears.  It  exercised  an  indefinable,  nostalgic 
power  over  me;  it  set  me  dreaming  of  another  world,  of 
infinite  passion  and  supreme  happiness.  Such  impressions 
are  the  echoes  of  paradise  in  the  soul ;  memories  of  ideal 
spheres,  whose  sad  sweetness  ravishes  and  intoxicates  the 
heart.  0  Plato!  0  Pythagoras!  ages  ago  you  heard  these 
harmonies — surprised  these  moments  of  inward  ecstasy — 
knew  these  divine  transports !  If  music  thus  carries  us  to 
heaven,  it  is  because  music  is  harmony,  harmony  is  perfec- 
tion, prefection  is  our  dream,  and  our  dream  is  heaven. 
This  world  of  quarrels  and  of  bitterness,  of  selfishness, 
ugliness,  and  misery,  makes  us  long  involuntarily  for  the 
eternal  peace,  for  the  adoration  which  has  no  limits,  and 
the  love  which  has  no  end.  It  is  not  so  much  the  infinite 
as  the  beautiful  that  we  yearn  for.  It  is  not  being,  or  the 
limits  of  being,  which  weigh  upon  us;  it  is  evil,  in  us  and 
without  us.  It  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  be  great,  so  long 
as  we  are  in  harmony  with  the  order  of  the  universe- 
Moral  ambition  has  no  pride;  it  only  desires  to  fill  its 
place,  and  make  its  note  duly  heard  in  the  universal  con- 
cert of  the  God  of  love. 

March  30,  1870. — Certainly,  nature  is  unjust  and  shame- 
less, wthout  probity,  and  without  faith.     Her  only  alterna- 


212  A  MIEL'8  JO  URNAL. 

tives  are  gratuitous  favor  or  mad  aversion,  and  her  only 
way  of  redressing  an  injustice  is  to  commit  another.  The 
happiness  of  the  few  is  expiated  by  the  misery  of  the 
greater  number.     It  is  useless  to  accuse  a  blind  force. 

The  human  conscience,  however,  revolts  against  this  law 
of  nature,  and  to  satisfy  its  own  instinct  of  justice  it  has 
imagined  two  hypotheses,  out  of  which  it  has  made  for 
itself  a  religion — the  idea  of  an  individual  providence,  and 
the  hypothesis  of  another  life. 

In  these  we  have  a  protest  against  nature,  which  is  thus 
declared  immoral  and  scandalous  to  the  moral  sense.  Man 
believes  in  good,  and  that  he  may  ground  himself  on  jus- 
tice be  maintains  that  the  injustice  all  around  him  is  but 
an  appearance,  a  mystery,  a  cheat,  and  that  justice  will  be 
done.     Mat  justitia,  pereat  mundus  ! 

It  is  a  great  act  of  faith.  And  since  humanity  has  not 
made  itself,  this  protest  has  some  chance  of  expressing  a 
truth.  If  there  is  conflict  between  the  natural  world  and 
the  moral  world,  between  reality  and  conscience,  con- 
science must  be  right. 

It  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  the  universe  should 
exist,  but  it  is  necessary  that  justice  should  be  done,  and 
atheism  is  bound  to  explain  the  fixed  obstinacy  of  con- 
science on  this  point.  Nature  is  not  just;  we  are  the  pro- 
ducts of  nature,  why  are  we  always  claiming  and  prophesy- 
ing justice?  why  does  the  effect  rise  up  against  its  cause? 
It  is  a  singular  phenomenon.  Does  the  protest  come 
from  any  puerile  blindness  of  human  vanity?  No,  it  is 
the  deepest  cry  of  our  being,  and  it  is  for  the  honor  of 
God  that  the  cry  is  uttered.  Heaven  and  earth  may  pass 
away,  but  good  ought  to  be,  and  injustice  ought  not  to 
be.  Such  is  the  creed  of  the  human  race.  Nature  will 
be  conquered  by  spirit;  the  eternal  will  triumph  over 
time. 

April  1,  1870. — I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  for  a 
woman  love  is  the  supreme  authority — that  which  judges 
the  rest  and  decides  what  is  good  or  evil.  For  a  man,  love 
is  subordinate  to  right.     It  is  a  gieat  passion,  but  it  is 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  213 

not  the  source  of  order,  the  synonym  of  reason,  the 
criterion  of  excellence.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  a 
woman  places  her  ideal  in  the  perfection  of  love,  and  a 
man  in  the  perfection  of  justice.  It  was  in  this  sense  that 
St.  Paul  was  able  to  say,  "  The  woman  is  the  glory  of  the 
man,  and  the  man  is  the  glory  of  God."  Thus  the  woman 
who  absorbs  herself  in  the  object  of  her  love  is,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  line  of  nature;  she  is  truly  woman,  she 
realizes  her  fundamental  type.  On  the  contrary,  the  man 
who  should  make  life  consist  in  conjugal  adoration,  and 
who  should  imagine  that  he  has  lived  suificiently  when  he 
has  made  himself  the  priest  of  a  beloved  woman,  such  a 
one  is  but  half  a  man;  he  is  despised  by  the  world,  and 
perhaps  secretly  disdained  by  women  themselves.  The 
woman  who  loves  truly  seeks  to  merge  her  own  individual- 
ity in  that  of  the  man  she  loves.  She  desires  that  her  love 
should  make  him  greater,  stronger,  more  masculine,  and 
more  active.  Thus  each  sex  plays  its  appointed  part:  the 
woman  is  first  destined  for  man,  and  man  is  destined  for 
society.  AVoman  owes  herself  to  one,  man  owes  himself 
to  all;  and  each  obtains  peace  and  happiness  only  when  he 
or  she  has  recognized  this  law  and  accepted  this  balance 
of  things.  The  same  thing  may  be  a  good  in  the  woman 
and  an  evil  in  the  man,  may  be  strength  in  her,  weakness 
in  him. 

There  is  then  a  feminine  and  a  masculine  morality — 
preparatory  chapters,  as  it  were,  to  a  general  human  moral- 
ity. Below  the  virtue  which  is  evangelical  and  sexless, 
there  is  a  virtue  of  sex.  And  this  virtue  of  sex  is  the  occa- 
sion of  mutual  teaching,  for  each  of  the  two  incarnations 
of  virtue  makes  it  its  business  to  convert  the  other,  the 
first  preaching  love  in  the  ears  of  justice,  the  second  jus- 
tice in  the  ears  of  love.  And  so  there  is  produced  an 
oscillation  and  an  average  which  represent  a  social  state, 
an  epoch,  sometimes  a  whole  civilization. 

Such  at  least  is  our  European  idea  of  the  harmony  of  the 
sexes  in  a  graduated  order  of  functions.  America  is  on 
the  road  to  revolutionize  this  ideal  by  the  introduction  of 


214  AMIEL'8  JOmiNAL. 

the  democratic  principle  of  the  equality  of  individrials  in  a 
general  equality  of  functions.  Only,  when  there  is  nothing 
left  but  a  multitude  of  equal  individualities,  neither  young 
nor  old,  neither  men  nor  women,  neither  benefited  nor 
benefactors — all  social  difference  will  turn  upon  money. 
The  whole  hierarchy  will  rest  upon  the  dollar,  and  the 
most  brutal,  the  most  hideous,  the  most  inhuman  of 
inequalities  will  be  the  fruit  of  the  passion  for  equality. 
What  a  result!  Plutolatry — the  worship  of  wealth,  the 
madness  of  gold — to  it  will  be  confided  the  task  of  chastis- 
ing a  false  principle  and  its  followers.  And  plutocracy 
will  be  in  its  turn  executed  by  equality.  It  would  be  a 
strange  end  for  it,  if  Anglo-Saxon  individualism  were 
ultimately  swallowed  up  in  Latin  socialism. 

It  is  my  prayer  that  the  discovery  of  an  equilibrium 
between  the  two  principles  may  be  made  in  time,  before 
the  social  war,  with  all  its  terror  and  ruin,  overtakes  us. 
But  it  is  scarcely  likely.  The  masses  are  always  ignorant 
and  limited,  and  only  advance  by  a  succession  of  contrary 
errors.  They  reach  good  only  by  the  exhaustion  of  evil. 
They  discover  the  way  out,  only  after  having  run  their 
heads  against  all  other  possible  issues. 

April  15,  1870. — Crucifixion!  That  is  the  word  we 
have  to  meditate  to-day.     Is  it  not  Good  Friday? 

To  curse  grief  is  easier  than  to  bless  it,  but  to  do  so  is 
to  fall  back  into  the  point  of  view  of  the  earthly,  the 
carnal,  the  natural  man.  By  what  has  Christianity  sub- 
dued the  world  if  not  by  the  apotheosis  of  grief,  by  its 
marvelous  transmutation  of  suffering  into  triumph,  of  the 
crown  of  thorns  into  the  crown  of  glory,  and  of  a  gibbet 
into  a  symbol  of  salvation?  What  does  the  apotheosis  of 
the  Cross  mean,  if  not  the  death  of  death,  the  defeat  of 
sin,  the  beatification  of  martyrdom,  the  raising  to  the  skies 
of  voluntary  sacrifice,  the  defiance  of  pain?  "0  Death, 
where  is  thy  sting?  0  Grave,  where  is  thy  victory?"  By 
Jong  brooding  over  this  theme — the  agony  of  the  just, 
peace  in  the  midst  of  agony,  and  the  heavenly  beauty  of 
euch  peace  -humanity  came  to  understand   that  a  new 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  2l5 

religion  was  born — a  new  mode,  that  is  to  say,  of  explain- 
ing life  and  of  understanding  suffering. 

Suffering  was  a  curse  from  which  man  fled;  now  it 
becomes  a  purification  of  the  soul,  a  sacred  trial  sent 
by  eternal  love,  a  divine  dispensation  meant  to  sanctify 
and  ennoble  us,  an  acceptable  aid  to  faith,  a  strange 
initiation  into  happiness.  0  power  of  belief !  All  remains 
the  same,  and  yet  all  is  changed.  A  new  certitude  arises 
to  deny  the  apparent  and  the  tangible;  it  pierces  through 
the  mystery  of  things,  it  places  an  invisible  Father  behind 
visible  nature,  it  shows  us  joy  shining  through  tears,  and 
makes  of  pain  the  beginning  of  joy. 

And  so,  for  those  who  have  believed,  the  tomb  becomes 
heaven,  and  on  the  funeral  pyre  of  life  they  sing  the 
hosanna  of  immortality;  a  sacred  madness  has  renewed 
the  face  of  the  world  for  them,  and  when  they  wish  to 
explain  what  they  feel,  their  ecstasy  makes  them  incom- 
prehensible; they  speak  with  tongues.  A  wild  intoxication 
of  self-sacrifice,  contempt  for  deach,  the  thirst  for  eternity, 
the  delirium  of  love — these  are  what  the  unalterable 
gentleness  of  the  Crucified  has  had  power  to  bring  forth. 
By  his  pardon  of  his  executioners,  and  by  that  unconquer- 
abe  sense  in  him  of  an  indissoluble  union  with  God,  Jesus, 
on  his  cross,  kindled  an  inextinguishable  fire  and  revolu- 
tionized the  world.  He  proclaimed  and  realized  salvation 
by  faith  in  the  infinite  mercy,  and  in  the  pardon  granted 
to  simple  repentance.  By  his  saying,  "There  is  more  joy 
in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth  than  over 
ninety  and  nine  just  persons  who  need  no  repentance," 
he  made  humility  the  gate  of  entrance  into  paradise. 

Crucify  the  rebellious  self,  mortify  yourself  wholly, 
give  up  all  to  God,  and  the  peace  which  is  not  of  this 
world  will  descend  upon  you.  For  eighteen  centuries 
no  grander  word  has  been  spoken;  and  although  hu- 
manity is  forever  seeking  after  a  more  exact  and  complete 
application  of  justice,  yet  her  secret  faith  is  not  in  justice 
but  in  pardon,  for  pardon  alone  conciliates  the  spotless 
purity  of  perfection  with  the  infinite  pity  due  to  weakness 


816  AMIKL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

— that  is  to  say,  it  aione  preserves  and  aeiends  the  idea  of 
holiness,  while  it  allows  full  scope  to  that  of  love.  The 
gospel  proclaims  the  ineffable  consolation,  the  good  news, 
which  disarms  all  earthly  griefs,  and  robs  even  death  of  its 
terrors — the  news  of  irrevog^ijlo  pardon,  that  is  to  say,  of 
eternal  life.     The  Cross  is  {!»#  giSarantee  of  the  gospel. 

Therefore  it  has  been  its  standard. 

May  7,  1870. — The  faiv^h  which  clings  to  its  idols  and 
resists  all  innovation  is  a  retarding  and  conservative  force; 
but  it  is  the  property  of  all  religion  to  serve  as  a  curb  to 
our  lawless  passion  for  freedom,  and  to  steady  and  quiet 
our  restlessness  of  temper.  Curiosity  is  the  expansive 
force,  which,  if  it  were  allowed  an  unchecked  action  upon 
us,  would  disperse  and  volatilize  us;  belief  represents  the 
force  of  gravitation  and  cohesion  which  makes  separate 
bodies  and  individuals  of  us.  Society  lives  by  faith, 
develops  by  science.  Its  basis  then  is  the  mysterious,  the 
unknown,  the  intangible — religion — while  the  fermenting 
principle  in  it  is  the  desire  of  knowledge.  Its  permanent 
substance  is  the  uncomprehended  or  the  divine;  its  chang- 
ing form  is  the  result  of  its  intellectual  labor.  The  uncon- 
scious adhesions,  the  confused  intuitions,  the  obscure  pre- 
sentiments, which  decide  the  first  faith  of  a  people,  are 
then  of  capital  importance  in  its  history.  All  history 
moves  between  the  religion  which  is  the  genial  instinctive 
and  fundamental  philosophy  of  a  race,  and  the  philosophy 
which  is  the  ultimate  religion — the  clear  perception,  that 
is  to  say,  of  those  principles  which  have  engendered  the 
whole  spiritual  development  of  humanity. 

It  is  always  the  same  thing  which  is,  which  was,  and 
which  will  be;  but  this  thing — the  absolute — betrays  with 
more  or  less  transparency  and  profundity  the  law  of  its  life 
and  of  its  metamorphoses.  In  its  fixed  aspect  it  is  called 
God;  in  its  mobile  aspect  the  world  or  nature.  God  is 
present  in  nature,  but  nature  is  not  God;  there  is  a  nature 
in  God,  but  it  is  not  God  himself.  I  am  neither  for  imma- 
nence nor  for  transcendence  taken  alone. 

May  9,  1870. — Disraeli,  in  his  new  novel,  "Lothair,"^ 


AMIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  217 

shows  that  the  two  great  rorces  oi  tne  present  are  Kevoln- 
tion  and  Catholicism,  and  that  the  free  nations  are  lost  if 
either  of  these  two  forces  triumphs.  It  is  exactly  my  own 
idea.  Only,  while  in  France,  in  Belgium,  in  Italy,  and 
in  all  Catholic  societies,  it  is  only  by  checking  one  of  these 
forces  by  the  other  that  the  state  and  civilization  can.be 
maintained,  the  Protestant  countries  are  better  off;  in 
them  there  is  a  third  force,  a  middle  faith  between  the 
two  other  idolatries,  which  enables  them  to  regard  liberty 
not  as  a  neutralization  of  two  contraries,  but  as  a  moral 
reality,  self-subsistent,  and  possessing  its  own  center  of 
gravity  and  motive  force.  In  the  Catholic  world  religion 
and  liberty  exclude  each  other.  In  the  Protestant  world 
they  accept  each  other,  so  that  in  the  second  case  there  is 
a  smaller  waste  of  force. 

Liberty  is  the  lay,  the  philosophical  principle.  It  ex- 
presses the  juridical  and  social  aspiration  of  the  race.  But 
as  there  is  no  society  possible  without  regulation,  without 
control,  without  limitations  on  individual  liberty,  above  all 
without  moral  limitations,  the  peoples  which  are  legally  the 
freest  do  well  to  take  their  religious  consciousness  for 
check  and  ballast.  In  mixed  states.  Catholic  or  free- 
thinking,  the  limit  of  action,  being  a  merely  penal  one, 
invites  incessant  contravention. 

The  puerility  of  the  freethinkers  consists  in  believing 
that  a  free  society  can  maintain  itself  and  keep  itself 
together  without  a  common  faith,  without  a  religious 
prejudice  of  some  kind.  Where  lies  the  will  of  God?  Is 
it  the  common  reason  which  expresses  it,  or  rather,  are  a 
clergy  or  a  church  the  depositories  of  it?  So  long  as  the 
response  is  ambiguous  and  equivocal  in  the  eyes  of  half  or 
the  majority  of  consciences — and  this  is  the  case  in  all 
Catholic  states — public  peace  is  impossible,  and  public  law 
is  insecure.  If  there  is  a  God,  we  must  have  him  on  our 
side,  and  if  there  is  not  a  God,  it  would  be  necessary  first 
of  all  to  convert  everybody  to  the  same  idea  of  th»  lawful 
and  the  useful,  to  reconstitute,  that  is  to  say,  a  lay  reli- 
gion, before  anything  politically  solid  could  be  built. 


218  AMI  EL' 8  JOURNAL. 

Liberalism  is  merely  feeding  upon  abstractions,  when  it 
persuades  itself  that  liberty  is  possible  without  free  indi- 
viduals, and  when  it  will  not  recognize  that  liberty  in  the 
individual  is  the  fruit  ot  a  foregoing  education,  a  moral 
education,  which  presupposes  a  liberating  religion.  To 
preach  liberalism  to  a  population  jesuitized  by  education, 
is  to  press  the  pleasures  of  dancing  upon  a  man  who  has 
lost  a  leg.  How  is  it  possible  for  a  child  who  has  never 
been  out  of  swaddling  clothes  to  walk?  How  can  the  abdi- 
cation of  individual  conscience  lead  to  the  government  of 
individual  conscience?  To  be  free,  is  to  guide  one's  self, 
to  have  attained  one's  majority,  to  be  emancipated,  master 
of  one's  actions,  and  judge  of  good  and  evil;  but  ultra- 
montane Catholicism  never  emancipates  its  disciples,  who 
are  bound  to  admit,  to  believe,  and  to  obey,  as  they  are 
told,  because  they  are  minors  in  perpetuity,  and  the  clergy 
alone  possess  the  law  of  right,  the  secret  of  justice,  and 
the  measure  of  truth.  This  is  what  men  are  landed  in  by 
the  idea  of  an  exterior  revelation,  cleverly  made  use  of  by 
a  patient  priesthood. 

But  what  astonishes  me  is  the  short-sight  of  the  states- 
men of  the  south,  who  do  not  see  that  the  question  of  ques- 
tions is  the  religious  question,  and  even  now  do  not  recog- 
nize that  a  liberal  state  is  wholly  incompatible  with  an 
anti-liberal  religion,  and  almost  equally  incompatible  with 
the  absence  of  religion.  They  confound  accidental  con- 
quests and  precarious  progress  with  lasting  results. 

There  is  some  probability  that  all  this  noise  which  is 
made  nowadays  about  libfrty  may  end  in  the  suppression 
of  liberty;  it  is  plain  that  the  internationals,  the  irrecon- 
cilables,  and  the  ul tramontanes,  are,  all  three  of  them, 
aiming  at  absolutism,  at  dictatorial  omnipotence.  Happily 
they  are  not  one  but  many,  and  it  will  not  be  difficult  to 
turn  them  against  each  other. 

If  liberty  is  to  be  saved,  it  will  not  be  by  the  doubters, 
the  men  of  science,  or  the  materialists;  it  will  be  by 
religious  conviction,  by  the  faith  of  individuals  who  be- 
lieve that  God  wills  man  to  be  free  but  also  pure;  it  wiU 


AMJEL'S  JOURNAL.  219 

be  by  the  seekers  after  holiness,  by  those  old-fashioned 
pious  persons  who  speak  of  immortality  and  eternal  life, 
and  prefer  the  soul  to  the  whole  world;  it  will  be  by  the 
enfranchised  children  of  the  ancient  faith  of  the  human 
race. 

June  5,  1870. — The  efficacy  of  religion  lies  precisely  in 
that  which  is  not  rational,  philosophic,  nor  external ;  its 
efficacy  lies  in  tlie  unforeseen,  the  miraculous,  the  extra- 
ordinary. Thus  religion  attracts  more  devotion  in  propor- 
«  tion  as  it  demands  more  faith — that  is  to  say,  as  it  becomes 
more  incredible  to  the  profane  mind.  The  philosopher 
aspires  to  explain  away  all  mysteries,  to  dissolve  them  into 
light.  It  is  mystery,  on  the  other  hand,  which  the  reli- 
gious instinct  demands  and  pursues;  it  is  mystery  which 
constitutes  the  essence  of  worship,  the  power  of  prosely- 
tism.  When  the  cross  became  the  "foolishness"  of  the 
cross,  it  took  possession  of  the  masses.  And  in  our  own 
day,  those  who  wish  to  get  rid  of  the  supernatural,  to 
enlighten  religion,  to  economize  faith,  find  themselves 
deserted,  like  poets  who  should  declaim  against  poetry,  or 
women  who  should  decry  love.  Faith  consists  in  the 
acceptance  of  the  incomprehensible,  and  even  in  the  pur- 
suit of  the  impossible,  and  is  self-intoxicated  with  its  own 
sacrifices,  its  own  repeated  extravagances. 

It  is  the  forgetfulness  of  this  psychological  law  which 
stultifies  the  so-called  liberal  Christianity.  It  is  the 
realization  of  it  which  constitutes  the  strength  of  Cathol- 
icism. 

Apparently  no  positive  religion  can  survive  the  super- 
natural element  which  is  the  reason  for  its  existence. 
Natural  religion  seems  to  be  the  tomb  of  all  historic  cults. 
All  concrete  religions  die  eventually  in  the  pure  air  of 
philosophy.  So  long  then  as  the  life  of  nations  is  in  need 
of  religion  as  a  motive  and  sanction  of  morality,  as  food 
foi  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  so  long  will  the  masses  turn 
away  from  pure  reason  and  naked  truth,  so  long  will  they 
adore  mystery,  so  long — and  rightly  so — will  they  rest  in 
faith,  the  only  region  where  the  ideal  presents  itself  tc 
them  in  an  attractive  form. 


220  AMIBVS  JOURNAL. 

Jnne  9,  1870. — At  bottom,  everything  depends  npon  the 
presence  or  absence  of  one  single  element  in  the  soul — 
hope.  All  the  activity  of  man,  all  his  efforts  and  all  his 
enterprises,  presuppose  a  hope  in  him  of  attaining  an  end. 
Once  kill  this  hope  and  his  movements  become  senseless, 
spasmodic,  and  convulsive,  like  those  of  some  one  falling 
from  a  height.  To  struggle  with  the  inevitable  has  some- 
thing childish  in  it.  To  implore  the  law  of  gravitation  to 
suspend  its  action  would  no  doubt  be  a  grotesque  prayer. 
Very  well!  but  when  a  man  loses  faith  in  the  efficacy  of 
his  efforts,  when  he  says  to  himself,  "  You  are  incapable 
of  realizing  your  ideal ;  happiness  is  a  chimera,  progress  is 
an  illusion,  the  passion  for  perfection  is  a  snare;  and  sup- 
posing all  your  ambitions  were  gratified,  everything  would 
still  be  vanity,"  then  he  comes  to  see  that  a  little  blind- 
ness is  necessary  if  life  is  to  be  carried  on,  and  that  illusion 
is  the  universal  spring  of  movement.  Complete  disillu- 
sion would  mean  absolute  immobility.  He  who  has 
deciphered  the  secret  and  read  the  riddle  of  finite  life 
escapes  from  the  great  wheel  of  existence;  he  has  left  the 
world  of  the  living — he  is  already  dead.  Is  this  the  mean- 
ing of  the  old  belief  that  to  raise  the  veil  of  Isis  or  to 
behold  God  face  to  face  brought  destruction  upon  the  rash 
mortal  who  attempted  it?  Egypt  and  Judea  had  recorded 
the  fact,  Buddha  gave  the  key  to  it;  the  individual  life  is 
a  nothing  ignorant  of  itself,  and  as  soon  as  this  nothing 
knows  itself,  individual  life  is  abolished  in  principle.  For 
as  soon  as  the  illusion  vanishes.  Nothingness  resumes  its 
eternal  sway,  the  suffering  of  life  is  over,  error  has  disap 
peared,  time  and  form  have  ceased  to  be  for  this  enfran- 
chised individuality;  the  colored  air-bubble  has  burst  in 
the  infinite  space,  and  the  misery  of  thought  has  sunk  to 
rest  in  the  changeless  repose  of  all-embracing  Nothing. 
The  absolute,  if  it  were  spirit,  would  still  be  activity, 
and  it  is  activity,  the  daughter  of  desire,  which  is  incom- 
patible with  the  absolute.  The  absolute,  then,  must  be 
the  zero  of  all  determination,  and  the  only  manner  of 
being  suited  to  it  is  Non-being. 


A MIEL'S  JOURNAL.  231 

July  2,  1870. — One  of  the  vices  of  France  is  the  frivolity 
which  substitutes  public  conventions  for  truth,  and  abso- 
lutely ignores  personal  dignity  and  the  majesty  of  con- 
science. The  French  are  ignorant  of  the  A  B  C  of  indi- 
vidual liberty,  and  still  show  an  essentially  catholic  intoler- 
ance toward  the  ideas  which  have  not  attained  universality 
or  the  adhesion  of  the_ majority.  The  nation  is  an  army 
which  can  bring  to  bear  mass,  number,  and  force,  but  not 
an  assembly  of  free  men  in  which  each  individual  depends 
for  his  value  on  himself.  The  eminent  Frenchman 
depends  upon  others  for  his  value;  if  he  possess  stripe, 
cross,  scarf,  sword,  or  robe — in  a  word,  function  and 
decoration — then  he  is  held  to  be  something,  and  he  feels 
himself  somebody.  It  is  the  symbol  which  establishes 
his  merit,  it  is  the  public  which  raises  him  from  nothing, 
as  the  sultan  creates  his  viziers.  These  highly-trained 
and  social  races  have  an  antipathy  for  individual  independ- 
ence; everything  with  them  must  be  founded  upon 
authority  military,  civil,  or  religious,  and  God  himself  is 
non-existent  until  he  has  been  established  by  decree. 
Their  fundamental  dogma  is  that  social  omnipotence 
which  treats  the  pretension  of  truth  to  be  true  without 
any  official  stamp,  as  a  mere  usurpation  and  sacrilege,  and 
Bcouts  the  claim  of  the  individual  to  possess  either  a  sepa- 
rate conviction  or  a  personal  value. 

July  20, 1870  {Bellalpe). — A  marvelous  day.  The  pano- 
rama before  me  is  of  a  grandiose  splendor ;  it  is  a  symphony 
of  mountains,  a  cantata  of  sunny  Alps. 

I  am  dazzled  and  oppressed  by  it.  The  feeling  upper- 
most is  one  of  delight  in  being  able  to  admire,  of  joy,  that 
is  to  say,  in  a  recovered  power  of  contemplation  which  is 
the  result  of  physical  relief,  in  being  able  at  last  to  forget 
myself  and  surrender  myself  to  things,  as  befits  a  man  in 
my  state  of  health.  Gratitude  is  mingled  with  enthu- 
Biasm.  I  have  just  spent  two  hours  of  continuous  delight 
at  the  foot  of  the  Sparrenhorn,  the  peak  behind  us.  A 
flood  of  sensations  overpowered  me.  I  could  only  look, 
feel,  dream,  and  think. 


222  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

Later. — Ascent  of  the  Sparrenhorn.  The  peak  of  it  Is 
not  very  easy  to  climb,  because  of  the  masses  of  loose 
stones  and  the  steepness  of  the  path,  which  runs  between 
two  abysses.     But  how  great  is  one's  reward! 

The  view  embraces  the  whole  series  of  the  Valais  Alps 
from  the  Furka  to  the  Combin;  and  even  beyond  the 
Furka  one  sees  a  few  peaks  of  the  Ticino  and  the  Rhaetian 
Alps;  while  if  you  turn  you  see 'behind  you  a  whole  polar 
world  of  snowfields  and  glaciers  forming  the  southern  side 
of  the  enormous  Bernese  group  of  the  Finsteraarahorn,  the 
Monch,  and  the  Jungfrau.  The  near  representative  of 
the  group  is  the  Aletschhorn,  whence  diverge  like  so  many 
ribbons  the  different  Alefcsch  glaciers  which  wind  about 
the  peak  from  which  I  saw  them.  I  could  study  the 
different  zones,  one  above  another — fields,  woods,  grassy 
Alps,  bare  rock  and  snow,  and  the  principle  types  of 
mountain;  the  pagoda-shaped  Mischabel,  with  its  four 
aretes  as  flying  buttresses  and  its  staff  of  nine  clustered 
peaks;  the  cupola  of  the  Fletchhorn,  the  dome  of  Monte 
Rosa,  the  pyramid  of  the  Weisshorn,  the  obelisk  of  the 
Cervin. 

Round  me  fluttered  a  multitude  of  butterflies  and 
brilliant  green-backed  flies;  but  nothing  grew  except  a 
few  lichens.  The  deadness  and  emptiness  of  the  upper 
Aletsch  glacier,  like  some  vast  white  street,  called  up  the 
image  of  an  icy  Pompeii.  All  around  boundless  silence. 
On  my  way  back  I  noticed  some  effects  of  sunshine — the 
close  elastic  mountain  grass,  starred  with  gentian,  forget- 
me-not,  and  anemones,  the  mountain  cattle  standing  out 
against  the  sky,  the  rocks  just  piercing  the  soil,  various 
circular  dips  in  the  mountain  side,  stone  waves  petrified 
thousands  of  thousands  of  years  ago,  the  undulating 
ground,  the  tender  quiet  of  the  evening;  and  I  invoked 
the  soul  of  the  mountains  and  the  spirit  of  the  heights! 

July  23,  1870  {Bellalpe). — The  sky,  which  was  misty 
and  overcast  this  morning,  has  become  perfectly  blue  again, 
and  the  giants  of  the  Valais  are  bathed  in  tranquil  light. 

Whence  this  solemn  melancholy   which  oppresses  and 


AMIEU8  JOURNAL.  223 

pursues  me?  I  have  just  read  a  series  of  scientific  books 
(Bronn  on  the  "Laws  of  Palseontology,"  Karl  Eitter  on 
the  "Law  of  Geographical  Forms").  Are  they  the  cause 
of  this  depression?  or  is  it  the  majesty  of  this  immense 
landscape,  the  splendor  of  this  setting  sun,  which  brings 
the  tears  to  my  eyes? 

"  Creature  d'un  jour  qui  t'agites  une  lieure," 

what  weighs  upon  thee — I  know  it  well — is  the  sense  of 
thine  utter  nothingness!  .  .  .  The  names  of  great 
men  hover  before  my  eyes  like  a  secret  reproach,  and  this 
grand  impassive  nature  tells  me  that  to-morrow  I  shall 
have  disappeared,  butterfly  that  I  am,  without  having 
lived.  Or  perhaps  it  is  the  breath  of  eternal  things  which 
stirs  in  me  the  shudder  of  Job.  What  is  man — this  weed 
which  a  sunbeam  withers?  What  is  our  life  in  the  infinite 
abyss?  I  feel  a  sort  of  sacred  terror,  not  only  for  myself, 
but  for  my  race,  for  all  that  is  mortal.  Like  Buddha,  I 
feel  the  great  wheel  turning — the  wheel  of  universal  illu- 
sion— and  the  dumb  stupor  which  enwraps  me  is  full  of 
anguish.  Isis  lifts  the  corner  of  her  veil,  and  he  who  per- 
ceives the  great  mystery  beneath  is  struck  with  giddiness. 
I  can  scarcely  breathe.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  hanging 
by  a  thread  above  the  fathomless  abyss  of  destiny.  Is 
this  the  Infinite  face  to  face,  an  intuition  of  the  last  great 
death? 

"  Creature  d'un  jour  qui  t'agites  une  lieure. 
Ton  ame  est  immortelle  et  tes  pleurs  vont  finir." 

Finir?  When  depths  of  ineffable  desire  are  opening  in 
the  heart,  as  vast,  as  yawning  as  the  immensity  which 
surrounds  us?  Genius,  self-devotion,  love — all  these  crav- 
ings quicken  into  life  and  torture  me  at  once.  Like  the 
shipwrecked  sailor  about  to  sink  under  the  waves,  I  am 
conscious  of  a  mad  clinging  to  life,  and  at  the  same  time 
of  a  rush  of  despair  and  repentance,  which  forces  from  me 
a  cry  for  pardon.  And  then  all  this  hidden  agony  dissolves 
in  wearied  submission.  "Resign  yourself  to  the  inevi- 
table !     Shroud  away  out  of  sight  the  flattering  delusions  of 


224  AMIEVS  JOURNAL. 

youth!  Live  and  die  in  the  shade!  Like  the  insects 
humming  in  the  darkness,  offer  up  your  evening  prayer. 
Be  content  to  fade  out  of  life  without  a  murmur  whenever 
the  Master  of  life  shall  breathe  upon  your  tiny  flame !  It 
is  out  of  myriads  of  unknown  lives  that  every  clod  of 
earth  is  built  up.  The  infusoria  do  not  count  until  they 
are  millions  upon  millions.  Accept  your  nothingness." 
Amen! 

But  there  is  no  peace  except  in  order,  in  law.  Am  I  in 
order?  Alas,  no!  My  changeable  and  restless  nature  will 
torment  me  to  the  end.  I  shall  never  see  plainly  what  I 
ought  to  do.  The  love  of  the  better  will  have  stood 
between  me  and  the  good.  Yearning  for  the  ideal  will 
have  lost  me  reality.  Vague  aspiration  and  undefined 
desire  will  have  been  enough  to  make  my  talents  useless, 
and  to  neutralize  my  powers.  Unproductive  nature  that  I 
am,  tortured  by  the  belief  that  production  was  required  of 
me,  may  not  my  very  remorse  be  a  mistake  and  a  super- 
fluity? 

Scherer's  phrase  comes  back  to  me,  "We  must  accept 
ourselves  as  we  are." 

September  8,  1870  {Zurich). — All  the  exiles  are  return- 
ing to  Paris — Edgar  Quinet,  Louis  Blanc,  Victor  Hugo. 
By  the  help  of  their  united  experience  will  they  succeed  in 
maintaining  the  republic?  It  is  to  be  hoped  so.  But  the 
past  makes  it  lawful  to  doubt.  While  the  republic  is  in 
reality  a  fruit,  the  French  look  u^on^it  as  a  seed-sowing. 
Elsewhere  such  a  form  of.-jClWiBSent  presupposes  free 
men ;  in  France  it  is  anji^gBjmst  be  an  instrument  of  instruc- 
tion and  protecti<rift4-«--*lWSilce  has  once  more  placed  sover- 
eignty in  the  hands  of  universal  suffrage,  as  though  the 
multitude  were  already  enlightened,  judicious,  and  reason- 
able, and  now  her  task  is  to  train  and  discipline  the  force 
which,  by  a  fiction,  is  master. 

The  ambition  of  France  is  set  upon  self-government, 
but  her  capacity  for  it  has  still  to  be  proved.  For  eighty 
years  she  has  confounded  revolution  with  liberty;  will  she 
now  give  proof  of  amendment  and  of  wisdom?     Such  a 


A MIEL'S  JO  TIRNAL.  225 

change  is  not  impossible.  Let  us  wait  for  it  with  sympathy, 
but  also  with  caution. 

September  12,  1870  {Basle). — The  old  Rhine  is  mur- 
muring under  my  window.  The  wide  gray  stream  rolls  its 
great  waves  along  and  breaks  against  the  arches  of  the 
bridge,  just  as  it  did  ten  years  or  twenty  years  ago;  the 
red  cathedral  shoots  its  arrow-like  spires  toward  heaven; 
the  ivy  on  the  terraces  which  fringe  the  left  bank  of  the 
Ehine  hangs  over  the  walls  like  a  green  mantle ;  the  inde- 
fatigable ferry-boat  'goes  and  comes  as  it  did  of  yore;  in  a 
word,  things  seem  to  Jae  eternal,  while  man's  hair  turns 
gray  and  his  heart  grows  old.  I  came  here  first  as  a  stu- 
dent, then  as  a  professor.  Now  I  return  to  it  at  the  down- 
ward turn  of  middle  age,  and  nothing  in  the  landscape  has 
changed  except  myself. 

The  melancholy  of  memory  may  be  commonplace  and 
puerile — all  the  same  it  is  true,  it  is  inexhaustible,  and  the 
poets  of  all  times  have  been  open  to  its  attacks. 

At  bottom,  what  is  individual  life?  A  variation  of  an 
eternal  theme — to  be  born,  to  live,  to  feel,  to  hope,  to 
love,  to  suffer,  to  weep,  to  die.  Some  would  add  to  these, 
to  grow  rich,  to  think,  to  conquer;  but  in  fact,  whatever 
frantic  efforts  one  may  make,  however  one  may  strain  and 
excite  one's  self,  one  can  but  cause  a  greater  or  slighter 
undulation  in  the  line  of  one's  destiny.  Supposing  a  man 
renders  the  series  of  fundamental  phenomena  a  little  more 
evident  to  others  or  a  little  more  distinct  to  himself,  what 
does  it  matter?  The  whole  is  still  nothing  but  a  fluttering 
of  the  infinitely  little,  the  insignificant  repetition  of  an 
invariable  theme.  In  truth,  whether  the  individual  exists 
or  no,  the  difference  is  so  absolutely  imperceptible  in  the 
whole  of  things  that  every  complaint  and  every  desire  is 
ridiculous.  Humanity  in  its  entirety  is  but  a  flash  in  the 
duration  of  the  planet,  and  the  planet  may  return  to  the 
gaseous  state  without  the  sun's  feeling  it  even  for  a 
second.     The  individual  is  the  iafinitesiraal  of  nothing. 

What,  then,  is  nature?  Nature  is  Maia — that  is  to  say, 
an  incessant,  fugitive,  indifferent  series  of  phenomena,  the 


2ii6  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

manifestation  of  all  possibilities,  the  inexhaustible  play  oi 
all  combinations. 

And  is  Maia  all  the  while  performing  for  the  amusement 
of  somebody,  of  some  spectator — Brahma?  Or  is  Brahma 
working  out  some  serious  and  unselfish  end?  From  the 
theistic  point  of  view,  is  it  the  purpose  of  God  to  make 
souls,  to  augment  the  sum  of  good  and  wisdom  by  the 
multiplication  of  himself  in  free  beings — facets  which  may 
flash  back  to  him  his  own  holiness  and  beauty?  This  con- 
ception is  far  more  attractive  to  the  heart.  But  is  it  more 
true?  The  moral  consciousness  affirms  it.  If  man  is 
capable  of  conceiving  goodness,  the  general  principle  of 
things,  which  cannot  be  inferior  to  man,  must  be  good. 
The  philosophy  of  labor,  of  duty,  of  effort,  is  sutely 
superior  to  that  of  phenomena,  chance,  and  universal 
indifference.  If  so,  the  whimsical  Maia  would  be  subor- 
dinate to  Brahma,  the  eternal  thought,  and  Brahma  would 
be  in  his  turn  subordinate  to  a  holy  God. 

October  25,  1870  {Geneva). — "Each  function  to  the 
most  worthy:"  this  maxim  governs  all  constitutions,  and 
serves  to  test  them.  Democracy  is  not  forbidden  to  apply 
it,  but  democracy  rarely  does  apply  it,  because  she  holds, 
for  example,  that  the  most  worthy  man  is  the  man  who 
pleases  her,  whereas  he  who  pleases  her  is  not  always  the 
most  worthy,  and  because  she  supposes  that  reason  guides 
the  masses,  whereas  in  reality  they  are  most  commonly  led 
by  passion.  And  in  the  end  every  falsehood  has  to  be 
expiated,  for  truth  always  takes  its  revenge. 

Alas,  whatever  one  may  say  or  do,  wisdom,  justice, 
reason,  and  goodness  will  never  be  anything  more  than 
special  cases  and  the  heritage  of  a  few  elect  souls.  Moral 
and  intellectual  harmony,  excellence  in  all  its  forms,  will 
always  be  a  rarity  of  great  price,  an  isolated  chef  d''ceuvre. 
All  that  can  be  expected  from  the  most  perfect  institutions 
is  that  they  should  make  it  possible  for  individual  excel- 
lence to  develop  itself,  not  that  they  should  produce  the 
excellent  individual.  Virtue  and  genius,  grace  and  beauty, 
will  always  constitute  a  noblesse  such  as  no  form  of  govern- 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  237 

ment  can  manufacture.  It  is  of  no  use,  therefore,  to  ex- 
cite one's  self  for  or  against  revolutions  which  have  only  an 
importance  of  the  second  order — an  importance  which  I 
do  not  wish  either  to  diminish  or  to  ignore,  but  an  impor- 
tance which,  after  all,  is  mostly  negative.  The  political 
life  is  but  the  means  of  the  true  life. 

October  26,  1870.— Sirocco.  A  bluish  sky.  The  leafy 
crowns  of  the  trees  have  dropped  at  their  feet;  the  finger 
of  winter  has  touched  them.  The  errand-woman  has  just 
brought  me  my  letters.  Poor  little  woman,  what  a  life ! 
She  spends  her  nights  in  going  backward  and  forward 
from  her  invalid  husband  to  her  sister,  who  is  scarcely  less 
helpless,  and  her  days  are  passed  in  labor.  Kesigned  and 
indefatigable,  she  goes  on  without  complaining,  till  she 
drops. 

Lives  such  as  hers  prove  something:  that  the  true  igno- 
rance is  moral  ignorance,  that  labor  and  suffering  are  the 
lot  of  all  men,  and  that  classification  according  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree  of  folly  is  inferior  to  that  which 
proceeds  according  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  virtue. 
The  kindgom  of  God  belongs  not  to  the  most  enlightened 
but  to  the  best;  and  the  best  man  is  the  most  unselfish 
man.  Humble,  constant,  voluntary  self-sacrifice — this  is 
what  constitutes  the  true  dignity  of  man.  And  therefore 
is  it  written,  "The  last  shall  be  first."  Society  rests  upon 
conscience  and  not  upon  science.  Civilization  is  first  and 
foremost  a  moral  tiling.  Without  honesty,  without 
respect  for  law,  without  the  worship  of  duty,  without  the 
love  of  one's  neighbor — in  a  word,  without  virtue — the 
whole  is  menaced  and  falls  into  decay,  and  neither  letters 
nor  art,  neither  luxury  nor  industry,  nor  rhetoric,  nor  the 
policeman,  nor  the  custom-house  officer,  can  maintain 
erect  and  whole  an  edifice  of  which  the  foundations  are 
unsound. 

A  state  founded  upon  interest  alone  and  cemented  by 
fear  is  an  ignoble  and  unsafe  construction.  The  ultimate 
ground  upon  which  every  civilization  rests  is  the  average 
morality  of  the  masses,   and  a  sufficient  amount  of  prac- 


228  A MIKUS  JOURNAL, 

tical  righteousness.  Duty  is  what  upholds  all.  So  that 
those  who  humbly  and  unobtrusively  fulfill  it,  and  set  a  good 
example  thereby,  are  the  salvation  and  the  sustenance  of 
this  brilliant  world,  which  knows  nothing  about  them. 
Ten  righteous  men  would  have  saved  Sodom,  but  thous- 
ands and  thousands  of  good  homely  folk  are  needed  to 
preserve  a  people  from  corruption  and  decay. 

If  ignorance  and  passion  are  the  foes  of  popular  morality, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  moral  indifference  is  the  malady 
of  the  cultivated  classes.  The  modern  separation  of 
enlightenment  and  virtue,  of  thought  and  conscience,  of 
the  intellectual  aristocracy  from  the  honest  and  vulgar 
crowd,  is  the  greatest  danger  that  can  threaten  liberty. 
When  any  society  produces  an  increasing  number  of  literary 
exquisites,  of  satirists,  skeptics,  and  beaux  espriis,  some 
chemical  disorganization  of  fabric  may  be  inferred.  Take, 
for  example,  the  century  of  Augustus,  and  that  ol  Louis 
XV.  Our  cynics  and  railers  are  mere  egotists,  who  stand 
aloof  from  the  common  duty,  and  in  their  indolent  remote- 
ness are  of  no  service  to  society  against  any  ill  which  may 
attack  it.  Their  cultivation  consists  in  having  got  rid  of 
feeling.  And  thus  they  fall  farther  and  farther  away  from 
true  humanity,  and  approach  nearer  to  the  demoniacal 
nature.  What  was  it  that  Mephistopheles  lacked?  Not 
intelligence  certainly,  but  goodness. 

October  28,  1870. — It  is  strange  to  see  how  completely 
justice  is  forgotten  in  the  presence  of  great  international 
struggles.  Even  the  great  majority  of  the  spectators  are 
no  longer  capable  of  judging  except  as  their  own  personal 
tastes,  dislikes,  fears,  desires,  interests,  or  passions  may 
dictate — that  is  to  say,  their  judgment  is  not  a  judgment 
at  all.  How  many  people  are  capable  of  delivering  a  fair 
verdict  on  the  struggle  now  going  on?  Very  few!  This 
horror  of  equity,  this  antipathy  to  justice,  this  rage 
against  a  merciful  neutrality,  represents  a  kind  of  eruption 
of  animal  passion  in  man,  a  blind  fierce  passion,  which  is 
absurd  enough  to  call  itself  a  reason,  whereas  it  is  nothing 
but  a  force. 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  329 

November  16,  1870. — We  are  struck  by  something  bewil- 
dering and  ineffable  when  we  look  down  into  the  depths  of 
an  abyss;  and  every  soul  is  an  abyss,  a  mystery  of  love 
and  piety.  A  sort  of  sacred  emotion  descends  upon  me 
whenever  I  penetrate  the  recesses  of  this  sanctuary  of  man, 
and  hear  the  gentle  murmur  of  the  prayers,  hymns,  and 
Supplications  which  rise  from  the  hidden  depths  of  the 
heart.  These  involuntary  confidences  fill  me  with  a  ten- 
der piety  and  a  religious  awe  and  shyness.  The  whole  ex- 
perience seems  to  me  as  wonderful  as  poetry,  and  divine 
with  the  divineness  of  birth  and  dawn.  Speech  fails  me, 
I  bow  myself  and  adore.  And,  whenever  I  am  able,  I 
strive  also  to  console  and  fortify. 

December  6,  1870. — "Dauer  im  Wechsel" — "Persistence 
in  change."  This  title  of  a  poem  by  Goethe  is  the  sum- 
ming up  of  nature.  Everything  changes,  but  with  such 
unequal  rapidity  that  one  existence  appears  eternal  to 
another.  A  geological  age,  for  instance,  compared  to  the 
duration  of  any  living  being,  the  duration  of  a  planet  com- 
pared to  a  geological  age,  appear  eternities — our  life,  too, 
compared  to  the  thousand  impressions  which  pass  across  us 
in  an  hour.  Wherever  one  looks,  one  feels  one's  self  over- 
whelmed by  the  infinity  of  infinites.  The  universe, 
seriously  studied,  rouses  one's  terror.  Everything  seems 
so  relative  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  distinguish  whether 
anything  has  a  real  value. 

Where  is  the  fixed  point  in  this  boundless  and  bottom- 
less gulf?  Must  it  not  be  that  which  perceives  the  relations 
of  things — in  other  words,  thought,  infinite  thought? 
The  perception  of  ourselves  within  the  infinite  thought, 
the  realization  of  ourselves  in  God,  self-acceptance  in 
him,  the  harmony  of  our  will  with  his — in  a  word,  religion 
— here  alone  is  firm  ground.  Whether  this  thought  be 
free  or  necessary,  happiness  lies  in  identifying  one's  self 
with  it.  Both  the  stoic  and  the  Christian  surrender 
themselves  to  the  Being  of  beings,  which  the  one  calls 
sovereign  wisdom  and  the  other  sovereign  goodness.  St. 
John  says,  "God  is  Light."  "God  is  Love."  The  Brahmin 


230  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

says,  "God  is  the  inexhaustible  fount  of  poetry."  Let  us 
say,  "God  is  perfection."  And  man?  Man,  for  all  his 
inexpressible  insignificance  and  frailty,  may  still  apprehend 
the  idea  of  perfection,  may  help  forward  the  supreme  willj 
and  die  with  Hosanna  on  his  lips ! 


All  teaching  depends  upon  a  certain  presentiment  and 
preparation  in  the  taught ;  we  can  only  teach  others  prof- 
itably what  they  already  virtually  know ;  we  can  only  give 
them  what  they  had  already.  This  principle  of  education 
is  also  a  law  of  history.  Nations  can  only  be  developed  on 
the  lines  of  their  tendencies  and  aptitudes.  Try  them  on 
any  other  and  they  are  rebellious  and  incapable  of  improve- 
ment. 


By  despising  himself  too  much  a  man  comes  to  be  worthy 
of  his  own  contempt. 


Its  way  of  suffering  is  the  witness  which  a  soul  bears  to 
itself. 


The  beautiful  is  superior  to  the  sublime  because  it  lasts 
and  does  not  satiate,  while  the  sublime  is  relative,  tempo- 
rary and  violent. 


February  4,  1871. — Perpetual  effort  is  the  characteristic 
of  modern  morality.  A  painful  process  has  taken  the 
place  of  the  old  harmony,  the  old  equilibrium,  the  old  joy 
and  fullness  of  being.  We  are  all  so  many  fauns,  satyrs, 
or  Silenuses,  aspiring  to  become  angels;  so  many  deformi- 
ties laboring  for  our  own  embellisliment;  so  many  clumsy 
chrysalises  each  working  painfully  toward  the  development 
of  the  butterfly  within  him.  Our  ideal  is  no  longer  a 
serene  beauty  of  soul ;  it  is  the  agony  of  Laocoon  struggling 
with  the  hydra  of  evil.  The  lot  is  cast  irrevocably.  There 
are  no  more  happy  whole-natured  men  among  us,  nothing 
but  so  many  candidates  for  heaven,  galley-slaves  on  earth. 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  231 

"Nous  ramons  notre  vie  en  attendant  le  port." 

Moliere  said  that  reasoning  banished  reason.  It  is  pos- 
sible also  that  the  progress  toward  perfection  we  are  so 
proud  of  is  only  a  pretentious  imperfection.  Duty  seems 
now  to  be  more  negative  than  positive;  it  means  lessening 
evil  rather  than  actual  good ;  it  is  a  generous  discontent, 
but  not  happiness;  it  is  an  incessant  pursuit  of  an  unattain- 
able goal,  a  noble  madness,  but  not  reason;  it  is  homesick- 
ness for  the  impossible — pathetic  and  pitiful,  but  still  not 
wisdom. 

The  being  which  has  attained  harmony,  and  every  being 
may  attain  it,  has  found  its  place  in  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  represents  the  divine  thought  at  least  as  clearly 
as  a  flower  or  a  solar  system.  Harmony  seeks  nothing  out- 
side itself.  It  is  what  it  ought  to  be;  it  is  the  expression 
of  right,  order,  law,  and  truth;  it  is  greater  than  time, 
and  represents  eternity. 

February  6,  1871. — I  am  reading  Juste  Olivier's  "  Chan- 
sons du  Soir"  over  again,  and  all  the  melancholy  of  the 
poet  seems  to  pass  into  my  veins.  It  is  the  revelation  of  -a 
complete  existence,  and  of  a  whole  world  of  melancholy 
reverie. 

How  much  character  there  is  in  "Musette,"  the 
"Chanson  de  I'Alouette,"  the  "Chant  du  Eetour,"  and 
the  "Gaite,"  and  how  much  freshness  in  "Lina,"  and 
"A  ma  fille!  "  But  the  best  pieces  of  all  are  "  Au  deU," 
"Homunculus,"  "La  Trompeuse,"  and  especially  "Frere 
Jacques,"  its  author's  masterpiece.  To  these  may  be 
added  the  "  Marionettes"  and  the  national  song,  "  Helvetic." 
Serious  purpose  and  intention  disguised  in  gentle  gayety 
and  childlike  badinage,  feeling  hiding  itself  under  a  smile 
of  satire,  a  resigned  and  pensive  wisdom  expressing  itself  in 
rustic  round  or  ballad,  the  power  of  suggesting  everything 
in  a  nothing — these  are  the  points  in  which  the  Vaudois 
poet  triumphs.  On  the  reader's  side  there  is  emotion  and 
surprise,  and  on  the  author's  a  sort  of  pleasant  slyness 
which  seems  to  delight  in  playing  tricks  upon  you,  only 


232  AM/EL'S  JOURNAL. 

tricks  of  the  most  dainty  and  brilliant  kind.  Juste  Olivier 
has  the  passion  we  might  imagine  a  fairy  to  have  for  deli- 
cate mystification.  He  hides  his  gifts.  He  promises 
nothing  and  gives  a  great  deal.  His  generosity,  which  is 
prodigal,  has  a  surly  air;  his  simplicity  is  really  subtlety; 
his  malice  pure  tenderness;  and  his  whole  talent  is,  as  it 
were,  the  fine  flower  of  the  Vaudois  mind  in  its  sweetest 
and  dreamiest  form. 

February  10,  1871. — My  reading  for  this  morning  has 
been  some  vigorous  chapters  of  Taine's  "History  of 
English  Literature."  Taine  is  a  writer  whose  work  always 
produces  a  disagreeable  impression  upon  me,  as  though  of 
a  creaking  of  pulleys  and  a  clicking  of  machinery;  there 
is  a  smell  of  the  laboratory  about  it.  His  style  is  the  style 
of  chemistry  and  technology.  The  science  of  it  is  inex- 
orable; it  is  dry  and  forcible,  penetrating  and  hard,  strong 
and  harsh,  but  altogether  lacking  in  charm,  humanity, 
nobility,  and  grace.  The  disagreeable  effect  which  it 
makes  on  one's  taste,  ear,  and  heart,  depends  probably 
upon  two  things:  upon  the  moral  philosophy  of  the 
author  and  upon  his  literary  principles.  The  profound 
contempt  for  humanity  which  characterizes  the  physiolog- 
ical school,  and  the  intrusion  of  technology  into  literature 
inaugurated  by  Balzac  and  Stendhal,  explain  the  underly- 
ing aridity  of  which  one  is  sensible  in  these  pages,  and 
which  seems  to  choke  one  like  the  gases  from  a  manufac- 
tory of  mineral  products.  The  book  is  instructive  in  the 
hightst  degree,  but  instead  of  animating  and  stirring,  it 
parches,  corrodes,  and  saddens  its  reader.  It  excites  no 
feeling  whatever;  it  is  simply  a  means  of  information.  I 
imagine  this  kind  of  thing  will  be  the  literature  of  the 
future — a  literature  a  VAmericaine,  as  different  as  possible 
from  Greek  art,  giving  us  algebra  instead  of  life,  the  for- 
mula instead  of  the  image,  the  exhalations  of  the  crucible 
instead  of  the  divine  madness  of  Apollo.  Cold  vision  will 
replace  the  joys  of  thought,  and  we  shall  see  the  death  of 
poetry,  flayed  and  dissected  by  science. 

February  15,  1871. — Without  intending  it,  nations  edu- 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  233 

cate  each  other,  while  having  apparently  nothing  in  view 
but  their  own  selfish  interests.  It  was  France  who  made 
the  Germany  of  the  present,  by  attempting  its  destruction 
during  ten  generations;  it  is  Germany  who  will  regenerate 
contemporary  France,  by  the  effort  to  crush  her.  Kevolu- 
tionary  France  will  teach  equality  to  the  Germans,  who  are 
by  nature  hierarchical.  Germany  will  teach  the  French 
that  rhetoric  is  not  science,  and  that  appearance  is  not  as 
valuable  as  reality.  The  worship  of  prestige — that  is  to 
say,  of  falsehood ;  the  passion  for  vainglory — that  is  to  say, 
for  smoke  and  noise;  these  are  what  must  die  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  world.  It  is  a  false  religion  which  is  being 
destroyed.  I  hope  sincerely  that  this  war  will  issue  in  a 
new  balance  of  things  better  than  any  which  has  gone  be- 
fore— a  new  Europe,  in  which  the  government  of  the 
individual  by  himself  will  be  the  cardinal  principle  of 
society,  in  opposition  to  the  Latin  principle,  which  regards 
the  individual  as  a  thing,- a  means  to  an  end,  an  instru- 
ment of  the  church  or  of  the  state. 

In  the  order  and  harmony  which  would  result  from  free 
adhesion  and  voluntary  submission  to  a  common  ideal,  we 
should  see  the  rise  of  a  new  moral  world.  It  would  be  an 
equivalent,  expressed  in  lay  terms,  to  the  idea  of  a  universal 
priesthood.  The  model  state  ought  to  resemble  a  great 
musical  society  in  which  every  one  submits  to  be  organized, 
subordinated,  and  disciplined  for  the  sake  of  art,  and  for 
the  sake  of  producing  a  masterpiece.  Nobody  is  coerced, 
nobody  is  made  use  of  for  selfish  purposes,  nobody  plays  a 
hypocritical  or  selfish  part.  All  I  ring  their  talent  to  the 
common  stock,  and  contribute  knowingly  and  gladly  to 
the  common  wealth.  Even  self-love  itself  is  obliged  to 
help  on  the  general  action,  under  pain  of  rebuff  should  it 
make  itself  apparent. 

February  18,  1871. — It  is  in  the  novel  that  the  average 
vulgarity  of  German  society,  and  its  inferiority  to  the 
societies  of  France  and  England,  are  most  clearly  visible. 
The  notion  of  "  bad  taste  "  seems  to  have  no  place  in  Ger- 
man aesthetics.     Their  elegance  has  no  grace  in  it;  and 


234  AMl&VB  JO  URN  A  L, 

they  cannot  understand  the  enormous  difference  there  is 
between  distinction  (what  is  gentlemanly,  ladylike),  and 
their  stiff  vornehmlichheit.  Their  imagination  lacks  style, 
training,  education,  and  knowledge  of  the  world;  it  has 
an  ill-bred  air  even  in  its  Sunday  dress.  The  race  is 
poetical  and  intelligent,  but  common  and  ill-mannered. 
Pliancy  and  gentleness,  manners,  wit,  vivacity,  taste, 
dignity,  and  charm,  are  qualities  which  belong  to  others. 

Will  that  inner  freedom  of  soul,  that  profound  harmony 
of  all  the  faculties  which  I  have  so  often  observed  among 
the  best  Germans,  ever  come  to  the  surface?  Will  the 
conquerors  of  to-day  ever  learn  to  civilize  and  soften  their 
forms  of  life?  It  is  by  their  future  novels  that  we  shall 
be  able  to  judge.  As  soon  as  they  are  cs^able  of  the  novel 
of  "  good  society  "  they  will  have  excelled  all  rivals.  Till 
then,  finish,  polish,  the  maturity  of  social  culture,  are 
beyond  them ;  they  may  have  humanity  of  feeling,  but  the 
delicacies,  the  little  perfections  of  life,  are  unknown  to 
them.  They  may  be  honest  and  well-meaning,  but  they 
are  utterly  without  savoir  vivre. 

February   22,    1^11.— Soiree    at    the     M .      About 

thirty  people  representing  our  best  society  were  there,  a 
happy  mixture  of  sexes  and  ages.  There  were  gray  heads, 
young  girls,  bright  faces — the  Avhole  framed  in  some- 
Aubusson  tapestries  which  made  a  charming  background,, 
and  gave  a  soft  air  of  distance  to  the  brilliantly-dressed 
groups. 

In  society  people  are  expected  to  behave  as  if  they  lived 
on  ambrosia  and  concerned  themselves  with  nothing  but 
the  loftiest  interests.  Anxiety,  need,  passion,  have  no  exist- 
ence. All  realism  is  suppressed  as  brutal.  In  a  word, 
what  we  call  "society"  proceeds  for  the  moment  on  the 
flattering  illusory  assumption  that  it  is  moving  in  an 
ethereal  atmosphere  and  breathing  the  air  of  the  gods. 
All  vehemence,  all  natural  expression,  all  real  suffering,  all 
careless  familiarity,  or  any  frank  sign  of  passion,  are  start- 
ling and  distasteful  in  this  delicate  wiiZiew  ;  they  at  once 
destroy  the  common  work,  the  cloud  palace,  the  magical 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  235 

architectural  whole,  which  has  been  raised  by  the  general 
consent  and  effort.  It  is  like  the  sharp  cock-crow  which 
breaks  the  spell  of  all  enchantments,  and  puts  the  fairies 
to  flight.  These  select  gatherings  produce,  without  know- 
ing it,  a  sort  of  concert  for  eyes  and  ears,  an  improvised 
work  of  art.  By  the  instinctive  collaboration  of  every^. 
body  concerned,  intellect  and  taste  hold  festival,  and  the 
associations  of  reality  are  exchanged  for  the  associations  of 
imagination.  So  understood,  society  is  a  form  of  poetry; 
the  cultivated  classes  deliberately  recompose  the  idyll  of 
the  past  and  the  buried  world  of  Astrea.  Paradox  or  no,  J. 
believe  that  these  fugitive  attempts  to  reconstruct  a  dream 
whose  only  end  is  beauty  represent  confused  reminiscences 
of  an  age  of  gold  haunting  the  human  heart,  or  rather 
aspirations  toward  a  harmony  of  things  which  every  daj 
reality  denies  to  us,  and  of  which  art  alone  gives  us  a 
glimpse. 

April  28,  1871. — For  a  psychologist  it  is  extremely  inter- 
esting to  be  readily  and  directly  conscious  of  the  complica- 
tions of  one's  own  organism  and  the  play  of  its  several 
parts.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  sutures  of  my  being  are  be- 
coming just  loose  enough  to  allow  me  at  once  a  clear  percep- 
tion of  myself  as  a  whole  and  a  distinct  sense  of  my  own  brit- 
tleness.  A  feeling  like  this  makes  personal  existence  a 
perpetual  astonishment  and  curiosity.  Instead  of  only 
(seeing  the  world  which  surrounds  me,  I  analyze  myself. 
Instead  of  being  single,  all  of  apiece,  I  become  legion,  mul- 
titude, a  whirlwind — a  very  cosmos.  Instead  of  living  on 
the  surface,  1  take  possession  of  my  inmost  self ,  I  apprehend 
myself,  if  not  in  my  cells  and  atoms,  at  least  so  far  as  my 
groups  of  organs,  almost  my  tissues,  are  concerned.  In 
other  words,  the  central  monad  isolates  itself  from  all  the 
subordinate  monads,  that  it  may  consider  them,  and  finds 
its  harmony  again  in  itself. 

Health  is  the  perfect  balance  between  our  organism, 
with  all  its  component  parts,and  the  outer  world;  it  serves, 
us  especially  for  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  that  world. 
Organic  disturbance  obliges  us  to  set  up  a  fresh  and  more 


236  AMI KL'S  JOURNAL. 

spiritual  equilibrium,  to  withdraw  within  the  soul. 
Thereupon  our  bodily  constitution  itself  becomes  the  ob- 
ject of  thought.  It  is  no  longer  we,  although  it  may 
belong  to  us;  it  is  nothing  more  than  the  vessel  in  which 
we  make  the  passage  of  life,  a  vessel  of  which  we  study  the 
weak  points  and  the  structure  without  identifying  it  with 
our  own  individuality. 

Where  is  the  ultimate  residence  of  the  self?  In  thought, 
or  rather  in  consciousness.  But  below  consciousness  there 
is  its  germ,  the  punctum  saliens  of  spontaneity ;  for  con- 
sciousness is  not  primitive,  it  becomes.  The  question  is, 
can  the  thinking  monad  return  into  its  envelope,  that  is 
to  say,  into  pure  spontaneity,  or  even  into  the  dark  abyss 
of  virtuality?  I  hope  not.  The  kingdom  passes;  the 
king  remains;  or  rather  is  it  the  royalty  alone  which  sub- 
sists— that  is  to  say,  the  idea — the  personality  begin  in  its 
turn  merely  the  passing  vesture  of  the  permanent  idea?  Is 
Leibnitz  or  Hegel  right?  Is  the  individual  immortal 
under  the  form  of  the  spiritual  body?  Is  he  eternal  under 
the  form  of  the  individual  idea?  Who  saw  most  clearly, 
St.  Paul  or  Plato?  The  theory  of  Leibnitz  attracts  me 
most  because  it  opens  to  us  an  infinite  of  duration,  of  mul- 
titude, and  evolution.  For  a  monad,  which  is  the  virtuaJ 
universe,  a  whole  infinite  of  time  is  not  too  much  to  develop 
the  infinite  within  it.  Only  one  must  admit  exterior 
actions  and  influences  which  affect  the  evolution  of  the 
monad.  Its  independence  must  be  a  mobile  and  increasing 
quantity  between  zero  and  the  infinite,  without  ever  reach- 
ing either  completeness  or  nullity,  for  the  monad  can  be 
neither  absolutely  passive  nor  entirely  free. 

June  21,  1871. — The  international  socialism  of  the 
ouvriers,  ineffectually  put  down  in  Paris,  is  beginning  to 
celebrate  its  approaching  victory.  For  it  there  is  neither 
country,  nor  memories,  nor  property,  nor  religion.  Thera 
is  nothing  and  nobody  but  itself.  Its  dogma  is  equality, 
its  prophet  is  Mably,  and  Baboeuf  is  its  god.* 

*  Mably,  the  Abbe  Mably,  1709-85,  one  of  the  precursors  of  the 
revolution,  the  professor  of  a  cultivated  and  classical  communiso 


AMIfSL'S  JOURNAL.  237 

How  is  the  conflict  to  be  solved,  since  there  is  no  longer 
one  single  common  principle  between  the  partisans  and  the 
enemies  of  the  existing  form  of  society,  between  liberalism 
and  the  worship  of  equality?  Their  respective  notions  of 
man,duty,happiness — that  is  to  say,of  life  and  its  end — differ 
radically.  I  suspect  that  the  communism  of  the  hiterna- 
tionale  is  merely  the  pioneer  of  Russian  nihilism,  which 
will  be  the  common  grave  of  the  old  races  and  the  servile 
races,  the  Latins  and  the  Slavs.  If  so,  the  salvation  of 
humanity  will  depend  upon  individualism  of  the  brutal 
American  sort.  I  believe  that  the  nations  of  the  present 
are  rather  tempting  chastisement  than  learning  wisdom. 
Wisdom,  which  means  balance  and  harmony,  is  only  met 
with  in  individuals.  Democracy,  which  means  the  rule  of 
the  masses,  gives  preponderance  to  instinct,  to  nature,  to 
the  passions — that  is  to  say,  to  blind  impulse,  to  elemental 
gravitation,  to  generic  fatality.  Perpetual  vacillation 
between  contraries  becomes  its  only  mode  of  progress,  be- 
cause it  represents  that  childish  form  of  prejudice  which 
falls  in  love  and  cools,  adores,  and  curses,  with  the  same 
haste  and  unreason.  A  succession  of  opposing  follies 
gives  an  impression  of  change  which  the  people  readily 
identify  with  improvement,  as  though  Enceladus  was 
more  at  ease  on  his  left  side  than  on  his  right,  the  weight 
of  the  volcano  remaining  the  same.  The  stupidity  of 
Demos  is  only  equaled  by  its  presumption.  It  is  like  a 
youth  with  all  his  animal  and  none  of  his  reasoning  powers 
developed. 

Luther's  comparison  of  humanity  to  a  drunken  peasant, 
always  ready  to  fall  from  his  horse  on  one  side  or  the 
other,  has  always  struck  me  as  a  particularly  happy  one. 
It  is  not  that  I  deny  the  right  of  the  democracy,  but  I 

based  on  a  study  of  antiquity,  which  Babeuf  and  others  like  him, 
in  the  following  generation,  translated  into  practical  experiment. 
"CaiusCiracchus"  Babeuf,  born  1764,  and  guillotined  in  1797  for  a  con- 
spiracy against  the  Directory,  is  sometimes  called  the  first  French 
socialist.  Perhaps  socialist  doctrines,  properly  so  called,  may  be  said 
to  make  their  first  entry  into  the  region  of  popular  debate  and  practi- 
cal agitation  with  his  "  Manifesto  des  figaux,"  issued  April  1796. 


-^38  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

!have  no  sort  of  illusion  as  to  the  use  it  will  make  of  ita 
right,  so  long,  at  any  rate,  as  wisdom  is  the  exception  and 
•conceit  the  rule.  Numbers  make  law,  but  goodness  has 
nothing  to  do  with  figures.  Every  fiction  is  self-expiating, 
and  democracy  rests  upon  this  legal  fiction,  that  the 
majority  has  not  only  force  but  reason  on  its  side — that  it 
possesses  not  only  the  right  to  act  but  the  wisdom  neces^ 
sary  for  action.  The  fiction  is  dangerous  because  of  its 
flattery;  the  demagogues  have  always  flattered  the  private 
feelings  of  the  masses.  The  masses  will  always  be  below 
the  average.  Besides,  the  age  of  majority  will  be  lowered, 
the  barriers  of  sex  will  be  swept  away,  and  democracy  will 
finally  make  itself  absurd  by  handing  over  the  decision  of 
all  that  is  greatest  to  all  that  is  most  incapable.  Such  an 
■end  will  be  the  punishment  of  its  abstract  principle  of 
-equality,  which  dispenses  the  ignorant  man  from  the 
necessity  of  self -training,  the  foolish  man  from  that  of 
self-judgment,  and  tells  the  child  that  there  is  no  need  for 
him  to  become  a  man,  and  the  good-for-nothing  that  self- 
improvement  is  of  no  account.  Public  law,  founded  upon 
virtual  equality,  will  destroy  itself  by  its  consequences.  It 
will  not  recognize  the  inequalities  of  worth,  of  merit,  and 
•of  experience;  in  a  word,  it  ignores  individual  labor,  and 
it  will  end  in  the  triumph  of  platitude  and  the  residuum. 
The  regime  of  the  Parisian  Commune  has  shown  us  what 
kind  of  material  comes  to  the  top  in  these  days  of  frantic 
vanity  and  universal  suspicion. 

Still,  humanity  is  tough,  and  survives  all  catastrophes. 
Only  it  makes  one  impatient  to  see  the  race  always  taking 
the  longest  road  to  an  end,  and  exhausting  all  possible 
faults  before  it  is  able  to  accomplish  one  definite  step 
'toward  improvement.  These  innumerable  follies,  that  are 
to  be  and  must  be,  have  an  irritating  effect  upon  me.  The 
more  majestic  is  the  history  of  science,  the  more  intoler- 
able is  the  history  of  politics  and  religion.  The  mode  of 
progress  in  the  moral  world  seems  an  abuse  of  the  patience 
of  God. 

Enough !     There  is  no  help  in  misanthropy  and  pessi* 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  239- 

mism.  If  our  race  vexes  us,  let  us  keep  a  decent  silence  on 
the  matter.  We  are  imprisoned  on  the  same  ship,  and  we- 
shall  sink  with  it.  Pay  your  own  debt,  and  leave  the  rest 
to  God.  Sharer,  as  you  inevitably  are,  in  the  sufferings 
of  your  kind,  set  a  good  example;  that  is  all  which  is 
asked  of  you.  Do  all  the  good  you  can,  and  say  all  the 
truth  you  know  or  believe;  and  for  the  rest  be  patient, 
resigned,  submissive.     God  does  his  business,  do  yours. 

July  29,  1871. — So  long  as  a  man  is  capable  of  self- 
renewal  he  is  a  living  being.  Goethe,  Schleiermacher  and 
Humboldt,  were  masters  of  the  art.  If  we  are  to  remain 
among  the  living  there  must  be  a  perpetual  revival  of 
youth  within  us,  brought  about  by  inward  change  and  by 
love  of  the  Platonic  sort.  The  soul  must  be  forever 
recreating  itself,  trying  all  its  various  modes,  vibrating  in 
all  its  fibres,  raising  up  new  interests  for  itself.     .     .     . 

The  "  Epistles  "  and  the  "  Epigrams  "  of  Goethe  which 
I  have  been  reading  to-day  do  not  make  one  love  him. 
Why?  Because  he  has  so  little  soul.  His  way  of  under- 
standing love,  religion,  duty,  and  patriotism  has  something 
mean  and  repulsive  in  it.  There  is  no  ardor,  no  generosity 
in  him.  A  secret  barrenness,  an  ill-concealed  egotism, 
makes  itself  felt  through  all  the  wealth  and  flexibility  of 
his  talent.  It  is  true  that  the  egotism  of  Goethe  has  at 
least  this  much  that  is  excellent  in  it,  that  it  respects  the 
liberty  of  the  individual,  and  is  favorable  to  all  originality. 
But  it  will  go  out  of  its  way  to  help  nobody;  it  will  give 
itself  no  trouble  for  anybody;  it  will  lighten  nobody  else's 
burden;  in  a  word,  it  does  away  with  charity,  the  great 
Christian  virtue.  Perfection  for  Goethe  consists  in  per- 
sonal nobility,  not  in  love;  his  standard  is  aesthetic,  not 
moral.  He  ignores  holiness,  and  has  never  allowed  him- 
self to  reflect  on  the  dark  problem  of  evil.  A  Spinozist 
to  the  core,  he  believes  in  individual  luck,  not  in  liberty, 
nor  in  responsibility.  He  is  a  Greek  of  the  great  time,  to 
whom  the  inward  crises  of  the  religious  consciousness  ar& 
unknown.  He  represents,  then,  a  state  of  soul  earlier  than 
or  subsequent  to  Christianity,  what  the  prudent  critics  of 


240  AMIEU a  JOURNAL. 

our  time  call  the  "  modern  spirit ;  "  and  only  one  tendency 
of  the  modern  spirit — the  worship  of  nature.  For  Goethe 
stands  outside  all  the  social  and  political  aspirations  of  the 
generality  of  mankind;  he  takes  no  more  interest  than 
Nature  herself  in  the  disinherited,  the  feeble,  and  the 
oppressed.     .     .     . 

The  restlessness  of  our  time  does  not  exist  for  Goethe  and 
his  school.  It  is  explicable  enough.  The  deaf  have  no  sense 
of  dissonance.  The  man  who  knows  nothing  of  the  voice 
of  conscience,  the  voice  of  regret  or  remorse,  cannot  even 
guess  at  the  troubles  of  those  who  live  under  two  masters 
and  two  laws,  and  belong  to  two  worlds — that  of  nature 
and  that  of  liberty.  For  himself,  his  choice  is  made.  But 
humanity  cannot  choose  and  exclude.  All  needs  are  vocal 
at  once  in  the  cry  of  her  suffering.  She  hears  the  men  of 
science,  but  she  listens  to  those  who  talk  to  her  of  religion; 
pleasure  attracts  her,  but  sacrifice  moves  her;  and  she 
hardly  knows  whether  she  hates  or  whether  she  adores  the 
crucifix. 

Later. — Still  re-reading  the  sonnets  and  the  miscellaneous 
poems  of  Goethe.  The  impression  left  by  this  part  of  the 
"  Gedichte  "  is  much  more  favorable  than  that  made  upon 
me  by  the  "Elegies"  and  the  "Epigrams."  The  "Water 
Spirits  "  and  "  The  Divine  "  are  especially  noble  in  feeling. 
One  must  never  be  too  hasty  in  judging  these  complex 
natures.  Completely  lacking  as  he  is  in  the  sense  of  obli- 
gation and  of  sin,  Goethe  nevertheless  finds  his  way  to 
seriousness  through  dignity.  Greek  sculpture  has  been 
his  school  of  virtue. 

August  15,  1871. — Re-read,  for  the  second  time,  Kenan's 
"Vie  de  Jesus,"  in  the  sixteenth  popular  edition.  The 
most  characteristic  feature  of  this  analysis  of  Christianity 
is  that  sin  plays  no  part  at  all  in  it.  Now,  if  anything 
explains  the  success  of  the  gospel  among  men,  it  is  that  it 
brought  them  deliverance  from  sin — in  a  word,  salvation. 
A  man,  however,  is  bound  to  explain  a  religion  seriously, 
and  not  to  shirk  the  very  center  of  his  subject.  This 
white-marble  Christ  is  not  the  Christ  who  inspired  the 


AMIWrs  JOURNAL.  241 

martyrs  and  has  dried  so  many  tears.  The  author  lacks 
moral  seriousness,  and  confounds  nobility  of  character 
with  holiness.  He  speaks  as  an  artist  conscious  of  a 
pathetic  subject,  but  his  moral  sense  is  not  interested  in 
the  question.  It  is  not  possible  to  mistake  the  epicurean- 
ism of  the  imagination,  delighting  itself  in  an  aesthetic 
spectacle,  for  the  struggles  of  a  soul  passionately  in  search 
of  truth.  In  Renan  there  are  still  some  remains  of  priestly 
ruse;  he  strangles  with  sacred  cords.  His  tone  of  con- 
temptuous indulgence  toward  a  more  or  less  captious  clergy 
might  be  tolerated,  but  he  should  have  shown  a  more 
respectful  sincerity  in  dealing  with  the  sincere  and  the 
spiritual.  Laugh  at  Pharisaism  as  you  will,  but  speak 
simply  and  plainly  to  honest  folk.* 

Later. — To  understand  is  to  be  conscious  of  the  funda- 
mental unity  of  the  thing  to  be  explained — that  is  to  say,  to 
conceive  it  in  its  entirety  both  of  life  and  development,  to 
be  able  to  remake  it  by  a  mental  process  without  making  a 
mistake,  without  adding  or  omitting  anything.  It  means, 
first,  complete  identification  of  the  object,  and  then  the 
power  of  making  it  clear  to  others  by  a  full  and  just  inter- 
pretation. To  understand  is  more  difficult  than  to  judge, 
for  understanding  is  the  transference  of  the  mind  into  the 
conditions  of  the  object,  whereas  judgment  is  simply  the 
enunciation  of  the  individual  opinion. 

August 25, 1871.  {Charnex-sur-Montreux). — Magnificent 
weather.  The  morning  seems  bathed  in  happy  peace,  and 
a  heavenly  fragrance  rises  from  mountain  and  shore;  it  is 
as  though  a  benediction  were  laid  upon  us.  No  vulgar 
intrusive  noise  disturbs  the  religious  quiet  of  the  scene. 
One  might  believe  one's  self  in  a  church — a  vast  temple  in. 
which  every  being  and  every  natural  beauty  has  its  place. 
X  dare  not  breathe  for  fear  of  putting  the  dream  to  flight 
— a  dream  traversed  by  angels. 

*  " 'Pefsifflez  les  pharisaismes,  niais  parlez  droit  aux  honnetes 
gens  '  me  dit  Amiel,  avec  ;;ne  certaine  aigreur,  Mon  Dieu,  que  les 
honnetes  gens  sont  souvent  exposes  a  etre  des  pharisiens  sans  le 
savoirl  "— -(M.  Kenan's  article,  already  quoted). 


^42  AMIKVS  JOURNAL. 

"  Comme  autrefois  j'entends  dans  l^'tber  infini 
La  inusique  da  temps  et  I'hosanna  des  mondes." 

In  these  heavenly  moments  the  cry  of  Pauline  rises  to 
one's  lips.*  "I  feel!  I  believe!  I  see!"  All  the  miseries, 
the  cares,  the  vexations  of  life,  are  forgotten ;  the  universal 
joy  absorbs  us;  we  enter  into  the  divine  order,  and  intOj 
the  blessedness  of  the  Lord.  Labor  and  tears,  sin,  pain, 
and  death  have  passed  away.  To  exist  is  to  bless;  life  is 
happiness.  In  this  sublime  pause  of  things  all  dissonances 
have  disappeared.  It  is  as  though  creation  were  but  one 
vast  symphony,  glorifying  the  God  of  goodness  with  an 
inexhaustible  wealth  of  praise  and  harmony.  We  question 
no  longer  whether  it  is  so  or  not.  We  have  ourselves  be- 
come notes  in  the  great  concert;  and  the  soul  breaks  the 
silence  of  ecstasy  only  to  vibrate  in  unison  with  the 
eternal  joy. 

September  22,  1871.  (Charnex). — Gray  sky — a  melan- 
choly day.  A  friend  has  left  me,  the  sun  is  unkind  and 
capricious.  Everything  passes  away,  everything  forsakes 
us.     And  in  place  of  all  we  have  lost,* age  and  gray  hairs! 

.  .  .  After  dinner  I  walked  to  Chailly  between  two 
showers.  A  rainy  landscape  has  a  great  charm  for  me; 
the  dark  tints  become  more  velvety,  the  softer  tones  more 
ethereal.  The  country  in  rain  is  like  a  face  with  traces  of 
tears  upon  it — less  beautiful  no  doubt,  but  more  expressive. 

Behind  the  beauty  which  is  superficial,  gladsome, 
radiant,  and  palpable,  the  aesthetic  sense  discovers  another 
order  of  beauty  altogether,  hidden,  veiled,  secret  and  mys- 
erious,  akin  to  moral  beauty.  This  sort  of  beauty  only 
reveals  itself  to  the  initiated,  and  is  all  the  more  exquisite 
for  that.  It  is  a  little  like  the  refined  joy  of  sacrifice,  like 
the  madness  of  faith,  like  the  luxury  of  grief;  it  is  not 

*  "  Polyeucte,"  Act.  V.  Scene  v. 

■  Mon  epoux  en  mourant  m'a  laisse  ses  lumieres; 
Son  sang  dont  tes  bourreanx  viennent  de  me  couvrir 
M'a  dessille  les  yeux  et  me  les  vient  d'ouvrir. 
Je  vois,  je  sais,  je  crois " 


AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL.  243 

within  the  reach  of  all  the  world.  Its  attraction  is  pecu- 
liar, and  affects  one  like  some  strange  perfume,  or  bizarre 
melody.  When  once  the  taste  for  it  is  set  up  the  mind 
takes  a  special  and  keen  delight  in  it,  for  one  finds  in  it 

"  Son  bien  premierement,  puis  le  dedain  d'autrui," 

and  it  is  pleasant  to  one's  vanity  not  to  be  of  the  same 
opinion  as  the  common  herd.  This,  however,  is  not  pos- 
sible with  things  which  are  evident,  and  beauty  which  is 
incontestable.  Charm,  perhaps,  is  a  better  name  for  the 
esoteric  and  paradoxical  beauty,  which  escapes  the  vulgar, 
and  appeals  to  our  dreamy,  meditative  side.  Classical 
beauty  belongs,  so  to  speak,  to  all  eyes;  it  has  ceased  ta 
belong  to  itself.  Esoteric  beauty  is  shy  and  retiring.  It 
only  unveils  itself  to  unsealed  eyes,  and  bestows  its  favors 
only  upon  love. 

This  is  why  my  friend ,  who  places  herself  imme- 
diately in  relation  with  the  souls  of  those  she  meets,  does, 
not  see  the  ugliness  of  people  when  once  she  is  interested 
in  them.  She  likes  and  dislikes,  and  those  she  likes  are 
beautiful,  those  she  dislikes  are  ugly.  There  is  nothing^ 
more  complicated  in  it  than  that.  For  her,  aesthetic  con- 
siderations are  lost  in  moral  sympathy ;  she  looks  with  her 
heart  only;  she  passes  by  the  chapter  of  the  beautiful,  and 
goes  on  to  the  chapter  of  charm.  I  can  do  the  same;  only 
it  is  by  reflection  and  on  second  thoughts;  my  friend  does, 
it  involuntarily  and  at  once;  she  has  not  the  artistic  fiber. 
The  craving  for  a  perfect  correspondence  between  the 
inside  and  the  outside  of  things — between  matter  and  form 
— is  not  in  her  nature.  She  does  not  suffer  from  ugliness, 
she  scarcely  perceives  it.  As  for  me,  I  can  only  forget 
what  shocks  me,  I  cannot  help  being  shocked.  All 
corporal  defects  irritate  me,  and  the  want  of  beauty  in 
women,  being  something  which  ought  not  to  exist,  shocks 
me  like  a  tear,  a  solecism,  a  dissonance,  a  spot  of  ink — in 
a  word,  like  something  out  of  order.  On  the  other  hand,, 
beauty  restores  and  fortifies  me  like  some  miraculous  food^ 
like  Olympian  ambrosia. 


1)44  AMIEU 8  JOURNAL. 

"  Que  le  bon  soit  toujours  camarade  du  beaa 

Des  demain  je  cbercberai  femme. 
Mais  comme  le  divorce  entre  eux  n'est  pas  nouveaa, 
Et  que  peu  de  beaux  corps,  botes  d'une  belle  ame, 

Assemblent  I'un  et  I'autre  point " 

I  will  not  finish,  for  after  all  one  must  resign  one's  self. 
A  beautiful  soul  in  a  healthy  body  is  already  a  rare  and 
blessed  thing;  and  if  one  finds  heart,  common  sense,  intel- 
lect, and  courage  into  the  bargain,  one  may  well  do  with- 
out that  ravishing  dainty  which  we  call  beauty,  and  almost 
without  that  delicious  seasoning  which  we  call  grace.  We 
do  without — with  a  sigh,  as  one  does  without  a  luxury. 
Happy  we,  to  possess  what  is  necessary. 

December  29,  1871. — I  have  been  reading  Bahnsen 
("Critique  de  I'evolutionismede  Hegel-Hartmann,  au  nom 
des  principes  de  Schopenhauer").  What  a  writer!  Like  a 
cuttle-fish  in  water,  every  movement  produces  a  cloud  of 
ink  which  shrouds  his  thought  in  darkness.  And  what  a 
doctrine!  A  thoroughgoing  pessimism,  which  regards  the 
world  as  absurd,  "absolutely  idiotic,"  and  reproaches  Hart- 
mann  for  having  allowed  the  evolution  of  the  universe  some 
little  remains  of  logic,  while,  on  the  contrary,  this  evolu- 
tion is  eminently  contradictory,  and  there  is  no  reason  any- 
where except  in  the  poor  brain  of  the  reasoner.  Of  all 
possible  worlds  that  which  exists  is  the  worst.  Its  only 
excuse  is  that  it  tends  of  itself  to  destruction.  The  hope 
of  the  philosopher  is  that  reasonable  beings  will  shorten 
their  agony  and  hasten  the  return  of  everything  to  nothing. 
It  is  the  philosophy  of  a  desperate  Satanism,  which  has 
not  even  the  resigned  perspectives  of  Buddhism  to  offer 
to  the  disappointed  and  disillusioned  soul.  The  individual 
can  but  protest  and  curse.  This  frantic  Sivaism  is  devel- 
oped from  the  conception  which  makes  the  world  the  pro- 
duct of  blind  will,  the  principle  of  everything. 

The  acrid  blasphemy  of  the  doctrine  naturally  leads  the 
writer  to  indulgence  in  epithets  of  bad  taste  which  prevent 
our  regarding  his  work  as  the  mere  challenge  of  a  para- 
doxical theorist.     We  have  really  to  do  with  a  theophobist, 


A  MIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  245 

whom  faith  in  goodness  rouses  to  a  fury  of  contempt.  In 
order  to  hasten  the  deliverance  of  the  world,  he  kills  all 
consolation,  all  hope,  and  all  illusion  in  the  germ,  and 
substitutes  for  the  love  of  humanity  which  inspired 
{^akyamouni,  that  Mephistophelian  gall  which  defiles, 
.  vithers,  and  corrodes  everything  it  touches. 

Evolutionism,  fatalism,  pessimism, nihilism — how  strange 
. .  i.s  to  see  this  desolate  and  terrible  doctrine  growing  and 
(  cpanding  at  the  very  moment  when  the  German  nation 
i^  celebrating  its  greatness  and  its  triumphs!  The  con- 
I  rust  is  so  startling  that  it  sets  one  thinking. 

This  orgieof  philosophic  thought,  identifying  error  with 
existence  itself,  and  developing  the  axiom  of  Proudhon — 
"Evil  is  God,"  will  bring  back  the  mass  of  mankind  to  the 
Christian  theodicy,  which  is  neither  optimist  nor  pessimist, 
but  simply  declares  that  the  felicity  which  Christianity 
calls  eternal  life  is  accessible  to  man. 

Self-mockery,  starting  from  a  horror  of  stupidity  and 
hypocrisy,  and  standing  in  the  way  of  all  wholeness  of 
mind  and  all  true  seriousness — this  is  the  goal  to  which 
intellect  brings  us  at  last,  unless  conscience  cries  out. 

The  mind  must  have  for  ballast  the  clear  conception  of 
duty,  if  it  is  not  to  fluctuate  between  levity  and  despair. 


Before  giving  advice  we  must  have  secured  its  accept- 
ance, or  rather,  have  made  it  desired. 


If  we  begin  by  overrating  the  being  we  love,  we  shall 
end  by  treating  it  with  wholesale  injustice. 


It  is  dangerous  to  abandon  one's  self  to  the  luxury  of 
grief;  it  deprives  one  of  courage,  and  even  of  the  wish  fw 
recovery. 


We  learn  to  recognize  a  mere  blunting  of  the  conscience 
in  that  incapacity  for  indignation  which  is  not  to  be  con- 
founded with  the  gentleness  of  charity,  or  the  reserve  of 
humility. 


346  AMIKL'8  JOURNAL. 

February  7, 1872. — Without  faith  a  man  can  do  nothing. 

But  faith  can  stifle  all  science. 

What,  then,  is  this  Proteus,  and  whence? 

Faith  is  a  certitude  without  proofs.  Being  a  certitude, 
it  is  an  energetic  principle  of  action.  Being  without 
proof,  it  is  the  contrary  of  science.  Hence  its  two  aspect^ 
and  its  two  effects.  Is  its  point  of  departure  intelligence? 
No.  Thought  may  shake  or  strengthen  faith;  it  cannot 
produce  it.  Is  its  origin  in  the  will?  No;  good  will  may 
favor  it,  ill-will  may  hinder  it,  but  no  one  believes  by  will, 
and  faith  is  not  a  duty.  Faith  is  a  sentiment,  for  it  is  a 
hope;  it  is  an  instinct,  for  it  precedes  all  outward  instruc- 
tion. Faith  is  the  heritage  of  the  individual  at  birth;  it 
is  that  which  binds  him  to  the  whole  of  being.  The  indi- 
vidual only  detaches  himself  with  difficulty  from  the 
maternal  breast;  he  only  isolates  himself  by  an  effort  from 
the  nature  around  him,  from  the  love  which  enwraps  him, 
the  ideas  in  which  he  floats,  the  cradle  in  which  he  lies. 
He  is  born  in  union  with  humanity,  with  the  world,  and 
with  God.  The  trace  of  this  original  union  is  faith. 
Faith  is  the  reminiscence  of  that  vague  Eden  whence  our 
individuality  issued,  but  which  it  inhabited  in  the  som- 
nambulist state  anterior  to  the  personal  life. 

Our  individual  life  consists  in  separating  ourselves  from 
our  milieu;  in  so  reacting  upon  it  that  we  apprehend  it 
consciously,  and  make  ourselves  spiritual  personalities — 
that  is  to  say,  intelligent  and  free.  Our  primitive  faith  is 
nothing  more  than  the  neutral  matter  which  our  experi- 
ence of  life  and  things  works  up  a  fresh,  and  which  may  be 
so  affected  by  our  studies  of  every  kind  as  to  perish  com- 
pletely in  its  original  form.  We  ourselves  may  die  before 
we  have  been  able  to  recover  the  harmony  of  a  personal 
faith  which  may  satisfy  our  mind  and  conscience  as  well  as 
our  hearts.  But  the  need  of  faith  never  leaves  us.  It  is 
the  postulate  of  a  higher  truth  which  is  to  bring  all  things 
into  harmony.  It  is  the  stimulus  of  research ;  it  holds  out 
to  us  the  reward,  it  points  us  to  the  goal.  Such  at  least  is 
the  true,  the  excellent  faith.     That  which  is  a  mere  preju- 


AMI KL' 8  JOURNAL.  247 

dice  of  childhood,  which  has  never  known  doubt,  which 
ignores  science,  which  cannot  respect  or  understand  or 
tolerate  different  convictions — such  a  faith  is  a  stupidity 
and  a  hatred,  the  mother  of  all  fanaticisms.  We  may  then 
repeat  of  faith  what  -^sop  said  of  the  tongue — 

"  Quid  medius  lingua,  lingu^  quid  pejus  eadem?" 

To  draw  the  poison-fangs  of  faith  in  ourselves,  we  must 
subordinate  it  to  the  love  of  truth.  The  supreme  worship 
of  the  true  is  the  only  means  of  purification  for  all  religions 
all  confessions,  all  sects.  Faith  should  only  be  allowed 
the  second  place,  for  faith  has  a  judge — in  truth.  When 
she  exalts  herself  to  the  position  of  supreme  judge  the 
world  is  enslaved:  Christianity,  from  the  fourth  to  the 
seventeenth  century,  is  the  proof  of  it.  .  .  Will  the 
enlightened  faith  ever  conquer  the  vulgar  faith?  We 
must  look  forward  in  trust  to  a  better  future. 

The  difficulty,  however,  is  this.  A  narrow  faith  has 
much  more  energy  than  an  enlightened  faith;  the  world 
belongs  to  will  much  more  than  to  wisdom.  It  is  not 
then  certain  that  liberty  will  triumph  over  fanaticism; 
and  besides,  independent  thought  will  never  have  the  force 
of  prejudice.  The  solution  is  to  be  found  in  a  division  of 
labor.  After  those  whose  business  it  will  have  been  ta 
hold  up  to  the  world  th.e  ideal  of  a  pure  and  free  faith, 
will  come  the  men  of  violence,  who  will  bring  the  new 
creed  within  the  circle  of  recognized  interests,  preju- 
dices, and  institutions.  Is  not  this  just  what  happened  to 
Christianity?  After  the  gentle  Master,  the  impetuous 
Paul  and  the  bitter  Councils.  It  is  true  that  this  is  what 
corrupted  the  gospel.  But  still  Christianity  has  done 
more  good  than  harm  to  humanity,  and  so  the  world  ad- 
vances, by  the  successive  decay  of  gradually  improved 
ideals. 

June  19,  1872. — The  wrangle  in  the  Paris  Synod  still 
goes  on.*     The  supernatural  is  the  stone  of  stumbling. 

*  A  synod  of  the  Reformed  churches  of  France  was  then  occupied 
in  determining  the  constituent  conditions  of  Protestant  belief. 


348  AMTEU 8  JOURNAL. 

It  might  be  possible  to  agree  on  the  idea  of  the  divine ; 
but  no,  that  is  not  the  question — the  chaff  must  be  sepa- 
rated from  the  good  grain.  The  supernatural  is  miracle, 
and  miracle  is  an  objective  phenomenon  independent  of  all 
preceding  casuality.  Now,  miracle  thus  understood  can- 
not be  proved  experimentally ;  and  besides,  the  subjective 
phenomena,  far  more  important  than  all  the  rest,  are  left 
out  of  account  in  the  definition.  Men  will  not  see  that 
miracle  is  a  perception  of  the  soul;  a  vision  of  the  divine 
behind  nature;  a  psychical  crisis,  analogous  to  that  of 
-^neas  on  the  last  day  of  Troy,  which  reveals  to  us  the 
heavenly  powers  prompting  and  directing  human  action. 
For  the  indifferent  there  are  no  miracles.  It  is  only  the 
religious  souls  who  are  capable  of  recognizing  the  finger 
of  God  in  certain  given  facts. 

The  minds  which  have  reached  the  doctrine  of  imma- 
nence are  incomprehensible  to  the  fanatics  of  transcend- 
ence. They  will  never  understand — these  last — that  the 
panenikeism  of  Krause  is  ten  times  more  religious  than  their 
dogmatic  supernaturalism.  Their  passion  for  the  facts 
which  are  objective,  isolated,  and  past,  prevents  them  from 
seeing  the  facts  which  are  eternal  and  spiritual.  They 
can  only  adore  what  comes  to  them  from  without.  As 
soon  as  their  dramaturgy  is  interpreted  symbolically  all 
seems  to  them  lost.  They  must  have  their  local  prodigies 
— their  vanished  unverifiable  miracles,  because  for  them  the 
divine  is  there  and  only  there. 

This  faith  can  hardly  fail  to  conquer  among  the  races 
pledged  to  the  Cartesian  dualism,  who  call  the  incompre- 
hensible clear,  and  abhor  what  is  profound.  Women  also 
will  always  find  local  miracle  more  easy  to  understand 
than  universal  miracle,  and  the  visible  objective  interven- 
tion of  God  more  probable  than  his  psychological  and 
inward  action.  The  Latin  world  by  its  mental  form  is 
doomed  to  petrify  its  abstractions,  and  to  remain  forever 
outside  the  inmost  sanctuary  of  life,  that  central  hearth 
where  ideas  are  still  undivided,  without  shape  or  deter- 
mination.    The  Latin  jnind  makes  everything  objective. 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  24i» 

because  it  remains  outside  things,  and  outside  itself.  It  is 
like  the  eye  which  only  perceives  what  is  exterior  to  it,  and 
which  cannot  see  itself  except  artificially,  and  from  a  dis- 
tance, by  means  of  the  reflecting  surface  of  a  mirror. 

August  30,  1872. — A  priori  speculations  weary  me  now 
as  much  as  anybody.  All  the  different  scholasticisms 
make  me  doubtful  of  what  they  profess  to  demonstrate, 
because,  instead  of  examining,  they  affirm  from  the 
beginning.  Their  object  is  to  throw  up  entrenchments 
around  a  prejudice,  and  not  to  discover  the  truth.  They 
accumulate  that  which  darkens  rather  than  that  which 
enlightens.  They  are  descended,  all  of  them,  from  the 
Catholic  procedure,  which  excludes  comparison,  informa- 
tion, and  previous  examination.  Their  object  is  to  trick 
men  into  assent,  to  furnish  faith  with  arguments,  and  to 
suppress  free  inquiry.  But  to  persuade  me,  a  man  must 
have  no  parti  pris,  and  must  begin  with  showing  a  temper 
of  critical  sincerity;  he  must  explain  to  me  how  the  matter 
lies,  point  out  to  me  the  questions  involved  in  it,  their 
origin,  their  difficulties,  the  different  solutions  attempted, 
and  their  degree  of  probability.  He  must  respect  my 
reason,  my  conscience,  and  my  liberty.  All  scholasticism 
is  an  attempt  to  take  by  storm;  the  authority  pretends  to 
explain  itself,  but  only  pretends,  and  its  deference  is 
merely  illusory.  The  dice  are  loaded  and  the  premises  are 
pre-judged.  The  unknown  is  taken  as  known,  and  all  the 
rest  is  deduced  from  it. 

Philosophy  means  the  complete  liberty  of  the  mind,  and 
therefore  independence  of  all  social,  political,  or  religious 
prejudice.  It  is  to  begin  with  neither  Christian  nor 
pagan,  neither  monarcchial  nor  democratic,  neither  socialist 
nor  individualist;  it  is  critical  and  impartial;  it  loves  one 
thing  only — truth.  If  it  disturbs  the  ready-made  opinions 
of  the  church  or  the  state — of  the  historical  medium — in 
which  the  philosopher  happens  to  have  been  born,  so 
much  the  worse,  but  there  is  no  help  for  it. 

'*  Est  ut  est  aut  non  est." 


250  AMIBUS  JOURNAL. 

Philosophy  means,  first,  doubt;  and  afterward  the  con- 
sciousness of  what  knowledge  means,  the  consciousness  of 
uncertainty  and  of  ignorance,  the  consciousness  of  limit, 
shade,  degree,  possibility.  The  ordinary  man  doubts 
nothing  and  suspects  nothing.  The  philosopher  is  n»ore 
cautious,  but  he  is  thereby  unfitted  for  action,  because, 
although  he  sees  the  goal  less  dimly  than  others,  he  sees 
his  own  weakness  too  clearly,  and  has  no  illusions  as  to  his 
chances  of  reaching  it. 

The  philosopher  is  like  a  man  fasting  in  the  midst  of 
universal  intoxication.  He  alone  perceives  the  illusion  of 
which  all  creatures  are  the  willing  playthings;  he  is  less 
duped  than  his  neighbor  by  his  own  nature.  He  judges 
more  sanely,  he  sees  things  as  they  are.  It  is  in  this  that 
his  liberty  consists — in  the  ability  to  see  clearly  and  soberly, 
in  the  power  of  mental  record.  Philosophy  has  for  its 
foundation  critical  lucidity.  The  end  and  climax  of  it 
would  be  the  intuition  of  the  universal  law,  of  the  first 
principle  and  the  final  aim  of  the  universe.  Not  to  be 
deceived  is  its  first  desire;  to  understand,  its  second. 
Emancipation  from  error  is  the  condition  of  real  knowl- 
edge. The  philosopher  is  a  skeptic  Peking  a  plausible 
hypothesis,  which  may  explain  to  him  the  whole  of  his 
experiences.  AVhen  he  imagines  that  he  has  found  such  a 
key  to  life  he  offers  it  to,  but  does  not  force  it  on  his  fel- 
low men. 

October  9,  1872. — I  have  been  taking  tea  at  the  M's. 
These  English  homes  are  very  attractive.  They  are  the 
recompense  and  the  result  of  a  long-lived  civilization,  and 
of  an  ideal  untiringly  pursued.  What  ideal?  That  of  a 
moral  order,  founded  on  respect  for  self  and  for  others, 
and  on  reverence  for  duty — in  a  word,  upon  personal  worth 
and  dignity.  The  master  shows  consideration  to  his 
guests,  the  children  are  deferential  to  their  parents,  and 
every  one  and  everything  has  its  place.  They  understand 
both  how  to  command  and  how  to  obey.  The  little  world 
is  well  governed,  and  seems  to  go  of  itself;  duty  is  the 
genius  loci — but  duty  tinged  with  a  reserve  and  self-con- 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  261 

trol  wliich  is  the  English  characteristic.  The  children  are 
the  great  test  of  this  domestic  system ;  they  are  happy, 
smiling,  trustful,  and  yet  no  trouble.  One  feels  that  they 
know  themselves  to  be  loved,  but  that  they  know  also 
that  they  must  obey.  Our  children  behave  like  masters  of 
the  house,  and  when  any  definite  order  comes  to  limit 
their  encroachments  they  see  in  it  an  abuse  of  power,  an 
arbitrary  act.  Why?  Because  it  is  their  principle  to  be- 
lieve that  everything  turns  round  them.  Our  children 
may  be  gentle  and  affectionate,  but  they  are  not  grateful, 
and  they  know  nothing  of  self-control. 

How  do  English  mothers  attain  this  result?  By  a 
rule  which  is  impersonal,  invariable,  and  firm;  in  other 
words,  by  law,  which  forms  man  for  liberty,  while  arbi- 
trary decree  only  leads  to  rebellion  and  attempts  at  emanci- 
pation. This  method  has  the  immense  advantage  of  form- 
ing characters  which  are  restive  under  arbitrary  authority, 
and  yet  amenable  to  justice,  conscious  of  what  is  due  to 
them  and  what  they  owe  to  others,  watchful  over  con- 
science, and  practiced  in  self-government.  In  every  English 
child  one  feels  something  of  the  national  motto — "  God  and 
my  right,"  and  in  every  English  household  one  has  a  sense 
that  the  home  is  a  citadel,  or  better  still,  a  ship  in  which 
every  one  has  his  place.  Naturally  in  such  a  world  the 
value  set  on  family  life  corresponds  with  the  cost  of  pro- 
ducing it;  it  is  sweet  to  those  whose  efforts  maintain  it. 

October  14,1872. — The  man  who  gives  himself  to  con- 
templation looks  on  at,  rather  than  directs  his  life,  is  rather 
a  spectator  than  an  actor,  seeks  rather  to  understand  than 
to  achieve.  Is  this  mode  of  existence  illegitimate,  im- 
moral? Is  one  bound  to  act?  Is  such  detachment  an 
idiosyncrasy  to  be  respected  or  a  sin  to  be  fought  against?  I 
have  always  hesitated  on  this  point,  and  I  have  wasted  years 
in  futile  self-reproach  and  useless  fits  of  activity.  My  west- 
ern conscience,  penetrated  as  it  is  with  Christian  morality, 
has  always  persecuted  my  oriental  quietism  and  Buddhist 
tendencies.  I  have  not  dared  to  approve  myself,  I  have 
not  known  how  to  correct  myself.     In  this,  as  in  all  else, 


262  AMIKL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

I  have  remained  divided  and  perplexed,  wavering  between 
two  extremes.  So  equilibrium  is  somehow  preserved,  but 
the  crystallization  of  action  or  thought  becomes  impos- 
sible. 

Having  early  a  glimpse  of  the  absolute,  I  have  never  had 
the  indiscreet  effrontery  of  individualism.  What  right 
have  I  to  make  a  merit  of  a  defect?  I  have  never  been 
able  to  see  any  necessity  for  imposing  myself  upon  others, 
nor  for  succeeding.  I  have  seen  nothing  clearly  except 
my  own  deficiencies  and  the  superiority  of  others.  That 
is  not  the  way  to  make  a  career.  With  varied  aptitudes 
and  a  fair  intelligence,  I  had  no  dominant  tendency,  no 
imperious  faculty,  so  that  while  by  virtue  of  capacity 
I  felt  myself  free,  yet  when  free  I  could  not  discover  what 
was  best.  Equilibrium  produced  indecision,  and  indecision 
has  rendered  all  my  faculties  barren. 

Novembers,  1872.  {Friday). — I  have  been  turning  over 
the  " Stoics "  again.  Poor  Louisa  Siefert!*  Ah!  we  play 
the  stoic,  and  all  the  while  the  poisoned  arrow  in  the  side 
pierces  and  wounds,  lethalis  arundo.  What  is  it  that,  like 
all  passionate  souls,  she  really  craves  for?  Two  things 
which  are  contradictory — glory  and  happiness.  She  adores 
two  incompatibles — the  Reformation  and  the  Revolution, 
France  and  the  contrary  of  France;  her  talent  itself  is  a 
combination  of  two  opposing  qualities,  inAvardness  and 
brilliancy,  noisy  display  and  lyrical  charm.  She  dislocates 
the  rhythm  of  her  verse,  while  at  the  same  time  she  has  a 
sensitive  ear  for  rhyme.  She  is  always  wavering  between 
Valmore  and  Baudelaire,  between  Leconte  de  Lisle  and 
Sainte-Beuve — that  is  to  say,  her  taste  is  a  bringing 
together  of  extremes.     She  herself  has  described  it: 

"  Toujours  extreme  en  mes  desire, 
Jadis,  enfant  joyeuse  et  folle, 
Sou  vent  une  seule  parole 
Bouleversait  tons  mes  plaisire." 

*  Louise  Siefert,  a  modern  French  poetess,  died  1879.  In  additioD 
to  "Les  Stoi'ques,"  she  published  "L'Annee  Republicaine,"  Paris 
1869,  and  other  works. 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  253 

But  what  a  fine  instrument  she  possesses!  what  strength 
of  soul !  what  wealth  of  imagination ! 

December  3,  1872. — What  a  strange  dream!  I  was 
under  an  illusion  and  yet  not  under  it ;  I  was  playing  a 
comedy  to  myself,  deceiving  my  imagination  without  being 
able  to  deceive  my  consciousness.  This  power  which 
dreams  have  of  fusing  incompatibles  together,  of  uniting 
what  is  exclusive,  of  identifying  yes  and  no,  is  what  is 
most  wonderful  and  most  symbolical  in  them.  In  a  dream 
our  individuality  is  not  shut  up  within  itself;  it  envelops, 
so  to  speak,  its  surroundings;  it  is  the  landscape,  and  all 
that  it  contains,  ourselves  included.  But  if  our  imagina- 
tion is  not  our  oAvn,  if  it  is  impersonal,  then  personality  is 
but  a  special  and  limited  case  of  its  general  functions.  A 
fortiori  it  would  be  the  same  for  thought.  And  if  so, 
thought  might  exist  without  possessing  itself  individually, 
without  embodying  itself  in  an  ego.  In  other  words,  dreams 
lead  us  to  the  idea  of  an  imagination  enfranchised  from 
the  limits  of  personality,  and  even  of  a  thought  which 
should  be  no  longer  conscious.  The  individual  who  dreams 
is  on  the  way  to  become  dissolved  in  the  universal  phantas- 
magoria of  Maia.  Dreams  are  excursions  into  the  limbo 
of  things,  a  semi-deliverance  from  the  human  prison. 
The  man  who  dreams  is  but  the  locale  of  various  phenomena 
of  which  he  is  the  spectator  in  spite  of  himself ;  he  is  pas- 
sive and  impersonal ;  he  is  the  plaything  of  unknown  vibra- 
tions and  invisible  sprites. 

The  man  who  should  never  issue  from  the  state  of  dream 
would  have  never  attained  humanity,  properly  so  called, 
but  the  man  who  had  never  dreamed  would  only  know  the 
mind  in  its  completed  or  manufactured  state,  and  would 
not  be  able  to  understand  the  genesis  of  personality;  he 
would  be  like  a  crystal,  incapable  of  guessing  what 
crystallization  means.  So  that  the  waking  life  issues  from 
the  dream  life,  as  dreams  are  an  emanation  from  the  nerv- 
ous life,  and  this  again  is  the  fine  flower  of  organic  life. 
Thought  is  the  highest  point  of  s  series  of  ascending  meta- 
morphoses, which  is  called  nature.     Personality  by  means 


254  AMIEL'8  JO  URN  A  L. 

of  thought  recovers  in  inward  profundity  what  it  has  lost 
in  extension,  and  makes  up  for  the  rich  accumulations  of 
receptive  passivity  by  the  enormous  privilege  of  that  em- 
pire over  self  which  is  called  liberty.  Dreams,  by  confus- 
ing and  suppressing  all  limits,  make  us  feel,  indeed,  the 
severity  of  the  conditions  attached  to  the  higher  existence; 
but  conscious  and  voluntary  thought  alone  brings  knowl- 
edge and  allows  us  to  act — that  is  to  say,  is  alone  capable 
of  science  and  of  perfection.  Let  us  then  take  pleasure  in 
dreaming  for  reasons  of  psychological  curiosity  and  mental 
recreation;  but  let  us  never  speak  ill  of  thought,  which  is 
our  strength  and  our  dignity.  Let  us  begin  as  Orientals, 
and  end  as  Westerns,  for  these  are  the  two  halves  of 
wisdom. 

December  11,  1872. — A  deep  and  dreamless  sleep  and 
now  I  wake  up  to  the  gray,  lowering,  rainy  sky,  which  has 
kept  us  company  for  so  long.  The  air  is  mild,  the  general 
outlook  depressing.  I  think  that  it  is  partly  the  fault  of 
my  windows,  which  are  not  very  clean,  and  contribute  by 
their  dimness  to  this  gloomy  aspect  of  the  outer  world. 
Rain  and  smoke  have  besmeared  them. 

Between  us  and  things  how  many  screens  there  are! 
Mood,  health,  the  tissues  of  the  eye,  the  window-panes  of 
our  cell,  mist,  smoke,  rain,  dust,  and  light  itself — and  all 
infinitely  variable !  Heraclitus  said :  "  No  man  bathes  twice 
in  the  same  river."  I  feel  inclined  to  say;  No  one  sees  the 
same  landscape  twice  over,  for  a  window  is  one  kaleido- 
scope, and  the  spectator  another. 

What  is  madness?  Illusion,  raised  to  the  second  power. 
A  sound  mind  establishes  regular  relations,  &modus  vivendiy 
between  things,  men,  and  itself,  and  it  is  under  the  delu- 
sion that  it  has  got  hold  of  stable  truth  and  eternal  fact. 
Madness  does  not  even  see  what  sanity  sees,  deceiving  itself 
all  the  Avhile  by  the  belief  that  it  sees  better  than  sanity. 
The  sane  mind  or  common  sense  confounds  the  fact  of  ex- 
perience with  necessary  fact,  and  assumes  in  good  faith 
that  what  is,  is  the  measure  of  what  may  be ;  while  mad- 
ness cannot  perceive  any  difference  between  what  is  and 
what  it  imagjines — it  confounds  its  dreams  with  reality. 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  5^55 

Wisdom  consists  in  rising  superior  both  to  madness  and 
to  common  sense,  and  in  lending  one's  self  to  the  universal 
illusion  without  becoming  its  dupe.  It  is  best,  on  the 
whole,  for  a  man  of  taste  who  knows  how  to  be  gay  with 
the  gay,  and  serious  with  the  serious,  to  enter  into  the 
game  of  Maia,  and  to  play  his  part  with  a  good  grace  in  the 
fantastic  tragi-comedy  which  is  called  the  Universe.  It 
seems  to  me  that  here  intellectualism  reaches  its  limit.* 
The  mind,  in  its  intellectual  capacity,  arrives  at  the 
intuition  that  all  reality  is  but  the  dream  of  a  dream. 
What  delivers  us  from  the  palace  of  dreams  is  pain,  per- 
sonal pain;  it  is  also  the  sense  of  obligation,  or  that  which 
combines  the  two,  the  pain  of  sin ;  and  again  it  is  love ;  in 
short,  the  moral  order.  What  saves  us  from  the  sorceries 
of  Maia  is  conscience ;  conscience  dissipates  the  narcotic 
vapors,  the  opium-like  hallucinations,  the  placid  stupor  of 
contemplative  indifference.  It  drives  us  into  contact 
with  the  terrible  wheels  within  wheels  of  human  suffering 
and  human  responsibility;  it  is  the  bugle-call,  the  cock- 
crow, which  puts  the  phantoms  to  flight;  it  is  the  armed 
archangel  who  chases  man  from  an  artificial  paradise. 
Intellectualism  may  be  described  as  an  intoxication  con- 
scious of  itself;  the  moral  energy  which  replaces  it,  on  the 
other  hand,  represents  a  state  of  fast,  a  famine  and  a  sleep 
less  thirst.     Alas !     Alas ! 

*  "  We  all  believe  in  duty,"  says  M.  Renan,  "  and  in  the  triumph 
of  righteousness;"  but  it  is  possible  notwithstanding,  "  que  tout  le 
contraire  soit  vrai — et  que  le  monde  ne  soit  qu'une  aniusante  feerie 
dont  aucun  dieu  ne  se  soucie.  II  faut  done  nous  arranger  de  maniere 
a  ceque,  dans  le  cas  ou  le  seconde  hypothese  serait  la  vraie,  nous 
n'ayons  pas  ete  trop  dupes." 

This  strain  of  remark,  which  is  developed  at  considerable  length, 
is  meant  as  a  criticism  of  Amiel's  want  of  sensitiveness  to  the  irony 
of  things.  But  in  reality,  as  the  passage  in  the  text  shows,  M. 
Renan  is  only  expressing  a  feeling  with  which  Amiel  was  just  as 
familiar  as  his  critic.  Only  he  is  delivered  from  this  last  doubt  of  all 
by  his  habitual  seriousness;  by  that  sense  of  "horror  and  awe" 
which  M.  Renan  puts  away  from  him.  Conscience  saves  him  "  from 
the  sorceries  of  Maia  " 


256  AMI EU 8  JOURNAL. 

Those  who  have  the  most  frivolous  idea  of  sin  are  just 
those  who  suppose  that  there  is  a  fixed  gulf  between  good 
people  and  others. 


The  ideal  which  the  wife  and  mother  makes  for  herself, 
the  manner  in  which  she  understands  duty  and  life,  con- 
tain the  fate  of  the  community.  Her  faith  becomes  the 
star  of  the  conjugal  ship,  and  her  love  the  animating  prin- 
ciple that  fashions  the  future  of  all  belonging  to  her. 
Woman  is  the  salvation  or  destruction  of  the  family.  She 
carries  its  destinies  in  the  folds  of  her  mantle. 


Perhaps  it  is  not  desirable  that  a  woman  should  be  free 
in  mind;  she  would  immediately  abuse  her  freedom.  She 
cannot  become  philosophical  without  losing  her  special 
gift,  which  is  the  worship  of  all  that  is  individual,  the 
defense  of  usage,  manners,  beliefs,  traditions.  Her  r61e  is 
to  slacken  the  combustion  of  thought  It  is  analogous  to 
that  of  azote  in  vital  air. 


In  every  loving  woman  there  is  a  priestess  of  the  past — a 
pious  guardian  of  some  affection,  of  which  the  object  has 
disappeared. 

January  6,  1873. — I  have  been  reading  the  seven 
tragedies  of  ^schylus,  in  the  translation  of  Leconte  de 
Lisle.  The  "Prometheus"  and  the  "Eumenides"  are 
greatest  where  all  is  great;  they  have  the  sublimity  of  the 
old  prophets.  Both  depict  a  religious  revolution — a  pro- 
found crisis  in  the  life  of  humanity.  In  "  Prometheus  ** 
it  is  civilization  wrenched  from  the  jealous  hands  of  the 
gods;  in  the  "Eumenides"  it  is  the  transformation  of  the 
idea  of  justice,  and  the  substitution  of  atonement  and  par- 
don for  the  law  of  implacable  revenge.  "Prometheus'* 
shows  us  the  martyrdom  which  waits  for  all  the  saviors  of 
men;  the  "Eumenides"  is  the  glorification  of  Athens  and 
the  Areopagus — that  is  to  say,  of  a  truly  human  civiliza- 
tion. How  magnificent  it  is  as  poetry,  and  how  small  the 
adventures  of  individual  passion  seem  beside  this  colossal 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL  257 

type  of  tragedy,  of  which  the  theme  is  the  destinies  of 
nations ! 

March  31,  1873.    (4  p.  m.)— 

"  En  quel  songe 

Se  plonge 
Mon  coeur,  et  que  veut-il?  " 

jfor  an  hour  past  I  have  been  the  prey  of  a  vague 
anxiety;  I  recognize  my  old  enemy.  .  .  .  It  is  a  sense 
of  void  and  anguish;  a  sense  of  something  lacking:  what? 
Love,  peace — God  perhaps.  The  feeling  is  one  of  pure 
want  unmixed  with  hope,  and  there  is  anguish  in  it  be- 
cause I  can  clearly  distinguish  neither  the  evil  nor  its 
remedy. 

"  0  printemps  sans  pitie,  dans  I'ame  endolorie, 
Avec  tes  cliants  d'oiseaux,  tes  brises,  ton  azur, 
Tu  creuses  sourderaent,  conspirateur  obscur, 
Le  gouffre  des  langueurs  et  de  la  reverie." 

Of  all  the  hours  of  the  day,  in  fine  weather,  the  after- 
noon, about  3  o'clock,  is  the  time  which  to  me  is  most 
difficult  to  bear.  I  never  feel  more  strongly  than  I  do  then, 
"Ze  vide  effrayaiit  de  la  vie,"  the  stress  of  mental  anxiety, 
or  the  painful  thirst  for  happiness.  This  torture  born  of 
the  sunlight  is  a  strange  phenomenon.  Is  it  that  the  sun, 
just  as  it  brings  out  the  stain  upon  a  garment,  the  wrinkles 
in  a  face,  or  the  discoloration  of  the  hair,  so  also  it  illu- 
mines within  exorable  distinctness  the  scars  and  rents  of  the 
heart?  Does  it  rouse  in  us  a  sort  of  shame  of  existence? 
In  any  case  the  bright  hours  of  the  day  are  capable  of 
flooding  the  whole  soul  with  melancholy,  of  kindling  in  us 
the  passion  for  death,  or  suicide,  or  annihilation,  or  of 
driving  us  to  that  which  is  next  akin  to  death,  the  deaden- 
ing of  the  senses  by  the  pursuit  of  pleasure.  They  rouse 
in  the  lonely  man  a  horror  of  himself;  they  make  him 
long  to  escape  from  his  own  misery  and  solitude — 
"  Le  coeur  trempe  sept  fois  dans  le  neant  divin." 

People  talk  of  the  temptations  to  crime  connected  with 
darkness,  but  the  dumb  sense  of  desolation  which  is  often 


258  AMIKUS  JO  URN  A  L. 

the  product  of  the  most  brilliant  moment  of  daylight  must 
not  be  forgotten  either.  From  the  one,  as  from  the  other, 
God  is  absent;  but  in  the  first  case  a  man  follows  his  senses 
and  the  cry  of  his  passion ;  in  the  second,  he  feels  himself 
lost  and  bewildered,  a  creature  forsaken  by  all  the  world. 

"  En  nous  sont  deux  instincts  qui  bravent  la  raison, 
C'est  I'effroi  du  bonbeur  et  la  soif  du  poison. 
Coeur  solitaire,  a  toi  prends  garde!  " 

April  3,  1873. — I   have  been  to  see   my  friends . 

Their  niece  has  just  arrived  with  two  of  her  children,  and 
the  conversation  turned  on  Father  Hyacinthe's  lecture. 

Women  of  an  enthusiastic  temperament  have  a  curious 
way  of  speaking  of  extempore  preachers  and  orators.  They 
imagine  that  inspiration  radiates  from  a  crowd  as  such, 
and  that  inspiration  is  all  that  is  wanted.  Could  there  be 
a  more  naif  and  childish  explanation  of  what  is  really  a 
lecture  in  which  nothing  has  been  left  to  accident,  neither 
the  plan,  nor  the  metaphors,  nor  even  the  length  of  the 
whole,  and  where  everything  has  been  prepared  with  the 
greatest  care!  But  women,  in  their  love  of  what  is  mar- 
velous and  miraculous,  prefer  to  ignore  all  this.  The 
meditation,  the  labor,  the  calculation  of  effects,  the  art,  in 
a  word,  which  have  gone  to  the  making  of  it,  diminishes 
for  them  the  value  of  the  thing,  and  they  prefer  to  believe 
it  fallen  from  heaven,  or  sent  down  from  on  high.  They 
ask  for  bread,  but  cannot  bear  the  idea  of  a  baker.  The 
sex  is  superstitious,  and  hates  to  understand  what  it  wishes 
to  admire.  It  would  vex  it  to  be  forced  to  give  the  smaller 
share  to  feeling,  and  the  larger  share  to  thought.  It 
wishes  to  believe  that  imagination  can  do  the  work  of 
reason,  and  feeling  the  work  of  science,  and  it  never  asks 
itself  how  it  is  that  women,  so  rich  in  heart  and  imagina- 
tion, have  never  distinguished  themselves  as  orators — that  is 
to  say,  have  never  known  how  to  combine  a  multitude  of 
facts,  ideas,  and  impulses,  into  one  complex  unity.  Enthu- 
siastic women  never  even  suspect  the  difference  that  there 
is  between  the  excitement  of  a  popular  harangue,  which  is 
nothing  but  a  mere  passionate  outburst,  and  the  unfold- 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  259 

ing  of  a  didactic  process,  the  aim  of  which  is  to  prove 
something  and  to  convince  its  hearers.  Therefore,  for 
them,  study,  reflection,  technique,  count  as  nothing;  the 
improvisatore  mounts  upon  the  tripod,  Pallas  all  armed 
issues  from  his  lips,  and  conquers  the  applause  of  the 
dazzled  assembly. 

Evidently  women  divide  orators  into  two  groups;  the 
artisans  of  speech,  who  manufacture  their  laborious  dis- 
courses by  the  aid  of  the  midnight  lamp,  and  the  inspired 
souls,  who  simply  give  themselves  the  trouble  to  be  born. 
They  will  never  understand  the  saying  of  Quintilian,  ^*  Fit 
orator^  nascitur poeta." 

The  enthusiasm  which  acts  is  perhaps  an  enlightening 
force,  but  the  enthusiasm  which  accepts  is  very  like  blind- 
ness. For  this  latter  enthusiasm  confuses  the  value  of 
things,  ignores  their  shades  of  difference,  and  is  an  obstacle 
to  all  sensible  criticism  and  all  calm  judgment.  The 
^'Ewig-Weibliche  "  favors  exaggeration,  mysticism,  senti- 
mentalism — all  that  excites  and  startles.  It  is  the  enemy 
of  clearness,  of  a  calm  and  rational  view  of  things,  the 
antipodes  of  criticism  and  of  science.  I  have  had  only  too 
much  sympathy  and  weakness  for  the  feminine  nature. 
The  very  excess  of  my  former  indulgence  toward  it  makes 
me  now  more  conscious  of  its  infirmity.  Justice  and 
science,  law  and  reason,  are  virile  things,  and  they  come 
before  imagination,  feeling,  reverie,  and  fancy.  When  one 
reflects  that  Catholic  superstition  is  maintained  by  women, 
one  feels  how  needful  it  is  not  to  hand  over  the  reins  to 
the  "Eternal  Womanly." 

May  23,  1873. — The  fundamental  error  of  France  lies  in 
her  psychology.  France  has  always  believed  that  to  say  a 
thing  is  the  same  as  to  do  it,  as  though  speech  were  action, 
as  though  rhetoric  were  capable  of  modifying  the  tenden- 
cies, habits,  and  character  of  real  beings,  and  as  though 
verbiage  were  an  efficient  substitute  for  will,  conscience, 
and  education. 

France  proceeds  by  bursts  of  eloquence,  of  cannonading, 
or  of  law-making;  she  thinks  that  so  she  can  change  the 


260  AMIEU8  JOURNAL. 

nature  of  things;  and  she  produces  only  phrases  and  ruins. 
She  has  never  understood  the  first  line  of  Montesquieu: 
"  Laws  are  necessary  relations,  derived  from  the  nature  of 
things."  She  will  not  see  that  her  incapacity  to  organize 
liberty  comes  from  her  own  nature;  from  the  notions 
which  she  has  of  the  individual,  of  society,  of  religion,  of 
law,  of  duty — from  the  manner  in  which  she  brings  up 
children.  Her  way  is  to  plant  trees  downward,  and  then 
she  is  astonished  at  the  result!  Universal  suffrage,  with 
a  bad  religion  and  a  bad  popular  education,  means  perpet- 
tual  wavering  between  anarchy  and  dictatorship,  between 
the  red  and  the  black,  between  Dan  ton  and  Loyola. 

How  many  scapegoats  will  France  sacrifice  before  it 
occurs  to  her  to  beat  her  own  breast  in  penitence? 

August  18,  1873.  {Scheveningen). — Yesterday,  Sunday, 
the  landscape  was  clear  and  distinct,  the  air  bracing,  the 
sea  bright  and  gleaming,  and  of  an  ashy-blue  color.  There 
were  beautiful  effects  of  beach,  sea,  and  distance;  and 
dazzling  tracks  of  gold  upon  the  waves,  after  the  sun  had 
sunk  below  the  bands  of  vapor  drawn  across  the  middle 
sky,  and  before  it  had  disappeared  in  the  mists  of  the  sea 
horizon.  The  place  was  very  full.  All  Scheveningen  and 
the  Hague,  the  village  and  the  capital,  had  streamed  out 
on  to  the  terrace,  amusing  themselves  at  innumerable 
tables,  and  swamping  the  strangers  and  the  bathers.  The 
orchestra  played  some  Wagner,  some  Auber,  and  some 
waltzes.  "What  was  all  the  world  doing?  Simply  enjoy- 
ing life. 

A  thousand  thoughts  wandered  through  my  brain.  I 
thought  how  much  history  it  had  taken  to  make  what  I 
saw  possible;  Judaea,  Egypt,  Greece,  Germany,  Gaul;  all 
the  centuries  from  Moses  to  Napoleon,  and  all  the  zones 
from  Batavia  to  Guiana,  had  united  in  the  formation  of 
this  gathering.  The  industry,  the  science,  the  art,  the 
geography,  the  commerce,  the  religion  of  the  whole  human 
race,  are  repeated  in  every  human  combination;  and  what 
we  see  before  our  own  eyes  at  any  given  moment  i«  inex- 
plicable without  reference  to  all  that  has  ever  been.     This 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  261 

interlacing  of  the  ten  thousand  threads  which  necessity 
fVeaves  into  the  production  of  one  single  phenomenon  is  a 
stupefying  thought.  One  feels  one's  self  in  the  presence 
of  law  itself — allowed  a  glimpse  of  the  mysterious  work- 
bhop  of  nature.     The  ephemeral  perceives  the  eternal. 

What  matters  the  brevity  of  the  individual  span,  seeing 
ihat  the  generations,  the  centuries,  and  the  worlds  them- 
selves are  but  occupied  forever  with  the  ceaseless  repro- 
duction of  the  hymn  of  life,  in  all  the  hundred  thousand 
modes  and  variations  which  make  up  the  universal  sym- 
phony? The  motive  is  always  the  same;  the  monad  has 
but  one  law:  all  truths  are  but  the  variation  of  one  single 
truth.  The  universe  represents  the  infinite  wealth  of  the 
Spirit  seeking  in  vain  to  exhaust  all  possibilities,  and  the 
goodness  of  the  Creator,  who  would  fain  share  with  the 
created  all  that  sleeps  within  the  limbo  of  Omnipotence. 

To  contemplate  and  adore,  to  receive  and  give  back,  to 
have  uttered  one's  note  and  moved  one's  grain  of  sand,  is 
all  which  is  expected  from  such  insects  as  we  are;  it  is 
enough  to  give  motive  and  meaning  to  our  fugitive  appari- 
tion in  existence,     .     .     . 

After  the  concert  was  over  the  paved  esplanade  behind 
ihe  hotels  and  the  two  roads  leading  to  the  Hague  were 
iilive  with  people.  One  might  have  fancied  one's  self  upon 
one  of  the  great  Parisian  boulevards  just  when  the  theaters 
are  emptying  themselves — there  were  so  many  carriages, 
omnibuses,  and  cabs.  Then,  when  the  human  tumult  had 
disappeared,  the  peace  of  the  starry  heaven  shone  out 
resplendent,  and  the  dreamy  glimmer  of  the  Milky  Way 
was  only  answered  by  the  distant  murmur  of  the  ocean. 

Later. — What  is  it  which  has  always  come  between  real 
life  and  me?  What  glass  screen  has,  as  it  were,  interposed 
itself  between  me  and  the  enjoyment,  the  possession,  the 
contact  of  things,leaving  me  only  the  r61e  of  the  looker-on? 

False  shame,  no  doubt.  I  have  been  ashamed  to  desire. 
Fatal  result  of  timidity,  aggravated  by  intellectual  delu- 
sion !  This  renunciation  beforehand  of  all  natural  ambi- 
tions, this  systematic  nutting  aside  of  all  longings  and  all 


262  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

desires,  has  perhaps  been  false  in  idea;  it  has  been  too 
like  a  foolish,  self-inflicted  mutilation. 
Fear,  too,  has  had  a  large  share  iu  it — 

"  La  peur  de  ce  que  j'aime  est  ma  fatalite." 

I  very  soon  discovered  that  it  was  simpler  for  me  to  give 
up  a  wish  than  to  satisfy  it.  Not  being  able  to  obtain  all 
that  my  nature  longed  for,  I  renounced  the  whole  en  bloc, 
without  even  taking  the  trouble  to  determine  in  detail 
what  might  have  attracted  me ;  for  what  was  the  good  of 
stirring  up  trouble  in  one's  self  and  evoking  images  of 
inaccessible  treasure? 

Thus  I  anticipated  in  spirit  all  possible  disillusions,  in 
the  true  stoical  fashion.  Only,  with  singular  lack  of 
logic,  I  have  sometimes  allowed  regret  to  overtake  me,  and 
I  have  looked  at  conduct  founded  upon  exceptional  prin- 
ciples with  the  eyes  of  the  ordinary  man.  I  should  have 
been  ascetic  to  the  end ;  contemplation  ought  to  have  been 
enough  for  me,  especially  now,  when  the  hair  begins  to 
whiten.  But,  after  all,  I  am  a  man,  and  not  a  theorem. 
A  system  cannot  suifer,  but  I  suffer.  Logic  makes  only 
one  demand — that  of  consequence;  but  life  makes  a  thous- 
and ;  the  body  wants  health,  the  imagination  cries  out  for 
beauty,  and  the  heart  for  love;  pride  asks  for  consideration, 
the  soul  yearns  for  peace,  the  conscience  for  holiness;  our 
whole  being  is  athirst  for  happiness  and  for  perfection; 
and  we,  tottering,  mutilated,  and  incomplete,  cannot 
always  feign  philosophic  insensibility;  we  stretch  out  our 
arms  toward  life,  and  we  say  to  it  under  our  breath,  "  Why 
— why — hast  thou  deceived  me  ?  " 

August  19, 1873.  (Scheveningen) . — I  have  had  a  morning 
walk.  It  has  been  raining  in  the  night.  There  are  large 
clouds  all  round ;  the  sea,  veined  with  green  and  drab,  has 
put  on  the  serious  air  of  labor.  She  is  about  her  business, 
in  no  threatening  but  at  the  same  time  in  no  lingering 
mood.  She  is  making  her  clouds,  heaping  up  her  sands, 
visiting  her  shores  and  bathing  them  with  foam,  gathering 
up   her   floods  for   the  tide,   carrying  the  ships  to  their 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  363 

destinations,  and  feeding  the  universal  life.  I  found  in  a 
hidden  nook  a  sheet  of  fine  sand  which  the  water  had  fur- 
rowed and  folded  like  the  pink  palate  of  a  kitten's  mouth, 
or  like  a  dappled  sky.  Everything  repeats  itself  by  analogy, 
and  each  little  fraction  of  the  earth  reproduces  in  a  smaller 
and  individual  form  all  the  phenomena  of  the  planet. 
Farther  on  I  came  across  a  bank  of  crumbling  shells,  and  it 
was  borne  in  upon  me  that  the  sea-sand  itself  might  well 
be  only  the  detritus  of  the  organic  life  of  preceding  eras,  a 
vast  monument  or  pyramid  of  immemorial  age,  built  up 
by  countless  generations  of  molluscs  who  have  labored  at 
the  architecture  of  the  shores  like  good  workmen  of  God. 
If  the  dunes  and  the  mountains  are  the  dust  of  living 
creatures  who  have  preceded  us,  how  can  we  doubt  but 
that  our  death  will  be  as  serviceable  as  our  life,  and  that 
nothing  which  has  been  lent  is  lost?  Mutual  borrowing 
and  temporary  service  seem  to  be  the  law  of  existence. 
Only,  the  strong  prey  upon  and  devour  the  weak,  and  the 
concrete  inequality  of  lots  within  the  abstract  equality  of 
destinies  wounds  and  disquiets  the  sense  of  justice. 

Smne  day. — A  new  spirit  governs  and  inspires  the 
generation  which  will  succeed  me.  It  is  a  singular  sensa- 
tion to  feel  the  grass  growing  under  one's  feet,  to  see  one's 
self  intellectually  uprooted.  One  must  address  one's  con- 
temporaries. Younger  men  will  not  listen  to  you.  Thought, 
like  love,  will  not  tolerate  a  gray  hair.  Knowledge  herself 
loves  the  young,  as  Fortune  used  to  do  in  olden  days. 
Contemporary  civilization  does  not  know  what  to  do  with 
old  age;  in  proportion  as  it  defies  physical  experiment,  it 
despises  moral  experience.  One  sees  therein  the  triumph 
of  Darwinism ;  it  is  a  state  of  war,  and  war  must  have 
young  soldiers;  it  can  only  put  up  with  age  in  its  leaders 
when  they  have  the  strength  and  the  mettle  of  veterans. 

In  point  of  fact,  one  must  either  be  strong  or  disappear, 
either  constantly  rejuvenate  one's  self  or  perish.  It  is  as 
though  the  humanity  of  our  day  had,  like  the  migratory 
birds,  an  immense  voyage  to  make  across  space;  she  can 
no  longer  support  the  weak  or  help  on  the  laggards.     The 


264  AMIEL'8  JOURNAL. 

great  assault  upon  the  future  makes  her  hard  and  pitiless 
to  all  who  fall  by  the  way.  Her  motto  is,  "  The  devil  take 
the  hindmost." 

The  worship  of  strength  has  never  lacked  altars,  but  it 
looks  as  though  the  more  we  talk  of  justice  and  humanity, 
the  more  that  other  god  sees  his  kingdom  widen. 

August  20,  1873.  {Scheveningen). — I  have  now  watched 
the  sea  which  beats  upon  this  shore  under  many  different 
aspects.  On  the  whole,  I  should  class  it  with  the  Baltic. 
As  far  as  color,  effect,  and  landscape  go,  it  is  widely  differ- 
ent from  the  Breton  or  Basque  ocean,  and,  above  all,  from 
the  Mediterranean.  It  never  attains  to  the  blue-green  of 
the  Atlantic,  nor  the  indigo  of  the  Ionian  Sea.  Its  scale 
of  color  runs  from  flint  to  emerald,  and  when  it  turns  to 
blue,  the  blue  is  a  turquoise  shade  splashed  with  gray 
The  sea  here  is  not  amusing  itself;  it  has  a  busy  and 
serious  air,  like  an  Englishman  or  a  Dutchman.  Neither 
polyps  nor  jelly-fish,  neither  sea-weed  nor  crabs  enliven 
the  sands  at  low  water;  the  sea  life  is  poor  and  meagre. 
What  is  wonderful  is  the  struggle  of  man  against  a  miserly 
and  formidable  power.  Nature  has  done  little  for  him, 
but  she  allows  herself  to  be  managed.  Stepmother  though 
she  be,  she  is  accommodating,  subject  to  the  occasional 
destruction  of  a  hundred  thousand  lives  in  a  single  inun- 
dation. 

The  air  inside  the  dune  is  altogether  different  from  that 
outside  it.  The  air  of  the  sea  is  life-giving,  bracing, 
oxydized ;  the  air  inland  is  soft,  relaxing,  and  warm.  In 
the  same  way  there  are  two  Hollands  in  every  Dutchman: 
there  is  the  man  of  the  polder,  heavy,  pale,  phlegmatic, 
slow,  patient  himself,  and  trying  to  the  patience  of  othe»B, 
and  there  is  the  man  of  the  dime,  of  the  harbor,  the  shore, 
the  sea,  who  is  tenacious,  seasoned,  persevering,  sunburned, 
daring.  Where  the  two  agree  is  in  calculating  prudence, 
and  in  methodical  persistency  of  effort. 

August  22,  1873.  {Scheveningen). — The  weather  is  rainy, 
the  whole  atmosphere  gray;  it  is  a  time  favorable  to 
thought  and  meditation.     I  have  a  liking  for  such  days  as 


AMIKUS  JOURNAL.  ;i65 

these;  they  revive  one's  converse  with  one's  self  and  make 
it  possible  to  live  the  inner  life;  they  are  quiet  and  peace- 
ful, like  a  song  in  a  minor  key.  We  are  nothing  but 
thought,  but  we  feel  our  life  to  its  very  center.  Our  very 
sensations  turn  to  reverie.  It  is  a  strange  state  of  mind ; 
it  is  like  those  silences  in  worship  which  are  not  the  empty 
moments  of  devotion,  but  the  full  moments,  and  which  are 
so  because  at  such  times  the  soul,  instead  of  being  polar- 
ized, dispersed,  localized,  in  a  single  impression  or  thought, 
feels  her  own  totality  and  is  conscious  of  herself.  She 
tastes  her  own  substance.  She  is  no  longer  played  upon, 
colored,  set  in  motion,  affected,  from  without;  she  is  in 
equilibrium  and  at  rest.  Openness  and  self-surrender 
become  possible  to  her;  she  contemplates  and  she  adores. 
She  sees  the  changeless  and  the  eternal  enwrapping  all  the 
phenomena  of  time.  She  is  in  the  religious  state,  in  har- 
mony with  the  general  order,  or  at  least  in  intellectual 
harmony.  Far  Jioliness,  indeed,  more  is  wanted — a  har- 
mony of  will,  a  perfect  self-devotion,  death  to  self  and 
absolute  submission. 

Psychological  peace — that  harmony  which  is  perfect  but 
virtual — is  but  the  zero,  the  potentiality  of  all  numbers; 
it  is  not  that  moral  peace  which  is  victorious  over  all  ills, 
which  is  real,  positive,  tried  by  experience,  and  able  to 
face  whatever  fresh  storms  may  assail  it. 

The  peace  of  fact  is  not  the  peace  of  principle.  There 
are  indeed  two  happinesses,  that  of  nature  and  that  of  con- 
quest— two  equilibria,  that  of  Greece  and  that  of  Nazareth 
— two  kingdoms,  that  of  the  natural  man  and  that  of  the 
regenerate  man. 

Later.  {Scheveningen). — Why  do  doctors  so  often  make 
mistakes?  Because  they  are  not  sufficiently  individual  in 
their  diagnoses  or  their  treatment.  They  class  a  sick  man 
flnder  some  given  department  of  their  nosology,  whereas 
every  invalid  is  really  a  special  case,  a  unique  example. 
How  is  it  possible  that  so  coarse  a  method  of  sifting  should 
produce  judicious  therapeutics?  Every  illness  is  a  factor 
simple  or  complex,  which  is  multiplied  by  a  second  factor. 


263^  AMIEU8  JOURNAL. 

invariably  complex — the  individual,  that  is  to  say,  who  is 
suffering  from  it,  so  that  the  result  is  a  special  problem, 
demanding  a  special  solution,  the  more  so  the  greater  the 
remoteness  of  the  patient  from  childhood  or  from  country 
life. 

The  principal  grievance  which  I  have  against  the  doctors 
is  that  they  neglect  the  real  problem,  which  is  to  seize  the 
unity  ©f  the  individual  who  claims  their  care.  Their 
methods  of  investigation  are  far  too  elementary;  a  doctor 
who  does  not  read  you  to  the  bottom  is  ignorant  of  essen 
tials.  To  me  the  ideal  doctor  would  be  a  man  endowed 
with  profound  knowledge  of  life  and  of  the  soul,  intuitively 
divining  any  suffering  or  disorder  of  whatever  kind,  and 
restoring  peace  by  his  mere  presence.  Such  a  doctor  is 
possible,  but  the  greater  number  of  them  lack  the  higher 
and  inner  life,  they  know  nothing  of  the  transcendent  labor- 
atories of  nature;  they  seem  to  me  superficial,  profane, 
strangers  to  divine  things,  destitute  of  intuition  and  sym- 
pathy. The  model  doctor  should  be  at  once  a  genius,  a 
saint,  a  man  of  God. 

September  11, 1873.  {Amsterdam). — The  doctor  has  just 
gone.  He  says  I  have  fever  about  me,  and  does  not  think 
that  I  can  start  for  another  three  days  without  imprud- 
ence. I  dare  not  write  to  my  Genevese  friends  and  tell 
them  that  I  am  coming  back  from  the  sea  in  a  radically 
worse  state  of  strength  and  throat  than  when  I  went  there, 
and  that  I  have  only  wasted  my  time,  my  trouble,  my 
money,  and  my  hopes.     .     .     . 

This  contradictory  double  fact — on  the  one  side  an  eager 
hopefulness  springing  up  afresh  after  all  disappointments, 
and  on  the  other  an  experience  almost  invariably  unfavor 
able — can  be  explained  like  all  illusions  by  the  whim  of 
nature,  which  either  wills  us  to  be  deceived  or  wills  us  ^ 
act  as  if  we  were  so. 

Skepticism  is  the  wiser  course,  but  in  delivering  us  from, 
error  it  tends  to  paralyze  life.  Maturity  of  mind  consists 
in  taking  part  in  the  prescribed  game  as  seriously  as  though 
one  believed  in  it.     Good-humored  compliance,  tempered 


AMTEUS  JOURNAL.  367 

by  a  smile,  is,  on  the  whole,  the  best  liue  to  tate;  one 
lends  one's  self  to  an  optical  illusion,  and  the  voluntary- 
concession  has  an  air  of  liberty.  Once  imprisoned  in  exist- 
ence, we  must  submit  to  its  laws  with  a  good  grace;  ta 
rebel  against  it  only  ends  in  impotent  rage,  when  once  we- 
have  denied  ourselves  the  solution  of  suicide. 

Humility  and  submission,  or  the  religious  point  of  view; 
clear-eyed  indulgence  with  a  touch  of  irony,  or  the  point 
of  view  of  worldly  wisdom — these  two  attitudes  are  pos- 
sible. The  second  is  sutficient  for  the  minor  ills  of  life, 
the  other  is  perhaps  necessary  in  the  greater  ones.  The- 
pessimism  of  Schopenhauer  supposes  at  least  health  and 
intellect  as  means  of  enduring  the  rest  of  life.  But  opti- 
mism either  of  the  stoical  or  the  Christian  sort  is  needed  tO' 
make  it  posdble  for  us  to  bear  the  worst  sufferings  of  flesh,, 
heart  and  soul.  If  we  are  to  escape  the  grip  of  despair,  we. 
must  believe  either  that  the  whole  of  things  at  least  is  good,, 
or  that  grief  is  a  fatherly  grace,  a  purifying  trial. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  idea  of  a  happy  immor- 
tality, serving  as  a  harbor  of  refuge  from  the  tempests  of 
this  mortal  existence,  and  rewarding  the  fidelity,  the- 
patience,  the  submission,  and  the  courage  of  the  travelers^ 
on  life's  sea — there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  idea,  the 
strength  of  so  many  generations,  and  the  faith  of  the 
church,  carries  with  it  inexpressible  consolation  to  those- 
who  are  wearied,  burdened,  and  tormented  by  pain  and 
suffering.  To  feel  one's  self  individually  cared  for  and 
protected  by  God  gives  a  special  dignity  and  beauty  to  life. 
Monotheism  lightens  the  struggle  for  existence.  But  does 
the  study  of  nature  allow  of  the  maintenance  of  those  local 
revelations  which  are  called  Mosaism,  Christianity,  Islam- 
ism  ?  These  religions  founded  upon  an  infantine  cosmogony, 
and  upon  a  chimerical  history  of  humanity,  can  they  bear 
confronting  with  modern  astronomy  and  geology?  The 
present  mode  of  escape,  which  consists  in  trying  to  satisfy 
the  claims  of  both  science  and  faith — of  the  science  which; 
contradicts  all  the  ancient  beliefs,  and  the  faith  Avhich,  in. 
the  case  of  things  that  are  beyond  nature  and  incapable  of 


1^68  ^ MIEU8  JO  URNAL. 

Terification,  affirms  them  on  her  own  responsibility  only— 
this  mode  of  escape  cannot  last  forever.  Every  fresh 
cosmical  conception  demands  a  religion  which  corre- 
sponds to  it.  Our  age  of  transition  stands  bewildered 
between  the  two  incompatible  methods,  the  scientific 
method  and  the  religious  method,  and  between  the  two 
certitudes,  which  contradict  each  other. 

Surely  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  must  be  sought  for 
in  the  moral  law,  which  is  also  a  fact,  and  every  step  of 
which  rp']uires  for  its  explanation  another  cosmos  than  the 
cosmos  of  necessity.  Who  knows  if  necessity  is  not  a  par- 
ticular case  of  liberty,  and  its  condition?  Who  knows  if 
nature  is  not  a  laboratory  for  the  fabrication  of  thinking 
beings  who  are  ultimately  to  become  free  creatures? 
Biology  protests,  and  indeed  the  supposed  existence  of  souls, 
independently  of  time,  space,  and  matter,  is  a  fiction  of 
faith,  less  logical  than  the  Platonic  dogma.  But  the  ques- 
tion remains  open.  We  may  eliminate  the  idea  of  purpose 
from  nature,  yet,  as  the  guiding  conception  of  the  highest 
being  of  our  planet,  it  is  a  fact,  and  a  fact  which  postu- 
lates a  meaning  in  the  history  of  the  universe. 

My  thought  is  straying  in  vague  paths:  why?  because  I 
have  no  creed.  All  my  studies  end  in  notes  of  interroga- 
tion, and  that  I  may  not  draw  premature  or  arbitrary 
conclusions  I  draw  none. 

Later  on. — My  creed  has  melted  away,  but  I  believe  in 
good,  in  the  moral  order,  and  in  salvation;  religion  for  me 
is  to  live  and  die  in  God,  in  complete  abandonment  to  the 
holy  will  which  is  at  the  root  of  nature  and  destiny.  I 
believe  even  in  the  gospel,  the  good  news — that  is  to  say, 
in  the  reconciliation  of  the  sinner  with  God,  by  faith  in  the 
love  of  a  pardoning  Father. 

October  4,  1873.  {Geneva). — I  have  been  dreaming  a  long 
while  in  the  moonlight,  which  floods  my  room  with  a 
radiance,  full  of  vague  mystery.  The  state  of  mind 
induced  in  us  by  this  fantastic  light  is  itself  so  dim  and 
ghost-like  that  analysis  loses  its  way  in  it,  and  arrives  at 
nothing  articulate.     It  is  something  indefinite  and  intan- 


AMIEL'S  JoVnNAL:  26i* 

gible,  like  the  noise  of  waves  which  is  made  up  of  a  thous- 
and fused  and  mingled  sounds.  It  is  the  reverberation  of 
all  the  unsatisfied  desires  of  the  soul,  of  all  the  stifled  sor- 
rows of  the  heart,  mingling  in  a  vague  sonorous  whole,  and 
dying  away  in  cloudy  murmurs.  All  those  imperceptible 
regrets,  which  never  individually  reach  the  consciousness, 
accumulate  at  last  into  a  definite  result;  they  become  the 
voice  of  a  feeling  of  emptiness  and  aspiration ;  their  tone  is 
melancholy  itself.  In  youth  the  tone  of  these  ^Eolian 
vibrations  of  the  heart  is  all  hope — a  proof  that  these  thou- 
sands of  indistinguishable  accents  make  up  indeed  the 
fundamental  note  of  our  being,  and  reveal  the  tone  of 
our  Avhole  situation.  Tell  me  what  you  feel  in  your  soli- 
tary room  when  the  full  moon  is  shining  in  upon  you  and 
your  lamp  is  dying  out,  and  I  will  tell  you  how  old  you 
are,  and  I  shall  know  if  you  are  happy. 


The  best  path  through  life  is  „the  high  road,  which 
initiates  us  at  the  right  moment  into  all  experience.  Ex- 
ceptional itineraries  are  suspicious,  and  matter  for  anxiety. 
What  is  normal  is  at  once  most  convenient,  most  honest, 
and  most  wholesome.  Cross  roads  may  tempt  us  for  one 
reason  or  another,  but  it  is  very  seldom  that  we  do  not 
come  to  regret  having  taken  them. 


Each  man  begins  the  world  afresh,  and  not  one  fault  of 
the  first  man  has  been  avoided  by  his  remotest  descendant. 
The  collective  experience  of  the  race  accumulates,  but 
individual  experience  dies  with  the  individual,  and  the 
result  is  that  institutions  become  wiser  and  knowledge  as 
such  increases;  but  the  young  man,  although  more  culti- 
Tated,  is  just  as  presumptuous,  and  not  less  fallible  to-day 
than  he  ever  was.  So  that  absolutely  there  is  progress, 
and  relatively  there  is  none.  Circumstances  improve,  but 
merit  remains  the  same.  The  whole  is  better,  perhaps, 
but  man  is  not  positively  better — he  is  only  different.  His 
defects  and  his  virtues  change  *j:eir  form,  but  the  total 
balance  does  not  show  him  to  be  the  richer.    A  thousand 


270      ,  AMIKUS  JOURNAL. 

things  advance,  nine  hundred  and  ninety-eight  fall  back 
this  is  progress.     There  is  nothing  in  it  to  be  proud  of, 
but  something,  after  ail,  to  console  one. 

February  4,  1874. — I  am  still  reading  the  "Origines  du 
Christianisme  "  by  Ernest  Havet.*  I  like  the  book  and  I 
dislike  it.  I  like  it  for  its  independence  and  courage;  I 
dislike  it  for  the  insufficiency  of  its  fundamental  ideas, 
and  the  imperfection  of  its  categories. 

The  author,  for  instance,  has  no  clear  idea  of  religion; 
and  his  philosophy  of  history  is  superficial.  He  is  a 
Jacobin.  "  The  Republic  and  Free  Thought " — he  cannot 
get  beyond  that.  This  curt  and  narrow  school  of  opinion 
is  the  refuge  of  men  of  independent  mind,  who  have  been 
scandalized  by  the  colossal  fraud  of  ultramontanism ;  but 
it  leads  rather  to  cursing  history  than  to  understanding 
it.  It  is  the  criticism  of  the  eighteenth  century,  of  which 
the  general  result  is  purely  negative.  But  Voltairianism 
is  only  the  half  of  the  philosophic  mind.  Hegel  frees 
thought  in  a  very  different  way. 

Havet,  too,  makes  another  mistake.  He  regards  Chris- 
tianity as  synonymous  with  Roman  Catholicism  and  with 
the  church.  I  know  very  well  that  the  Roman  Church 
does  the  same,  and  that  with  her  the  assimilation  is  a  mat- 
ter of  sound  tactics;  but  scientifically  it  is  inexact.  We 
ought  not  even  to  identify  Christianity  with  the  gospel, 
nor  the  gospel  with  religion  in  general.  It  is  the  business 
of  critical  precision  to  clear  away  these  perpetual  confu- 
sions in  which  Christian  practice  and  Christian  preaching 
abound.  To  disentangle  ideas,  to  distinguish  and  limit 
them,  to  fit  them  into  their  true  place  and  order,  is  tho 
first  duty  of  science  whenever  it  lays  hands  upon  such 

*  Ernest  Havet,  born  1813,  a  distinguished  French  scholar  and 
professor.  He  became  professor  of  Latin  oratory  at  the  College  de 
France  in  1855,  and  a  member  of  the  Institute  in  January,  1880.  His 
admirable  edition  of  the  "  Pensees  de  Pascal  "  is  well-known,  "Le 
Christianisme  et  ses  Origines,"  an  important  book,  in  four  volumes, 
was  developed  from  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Reoue  des  deux  Mondes, 
and  the  Revue  Contemporaine. 


AMIKL' 8  JOURNAL.  271 

chaotic  and  complex  things  as  manners,  idioms,  or  beliefs. 
Entanglement  is  the  condition  of  life;  order  and  clearness 
are  the  signs  of  serious  and  successful  thought. 

Formerly  it  was  the  ideas  of  nature  which  were  a  tissue 
of  errors  and  incoherent  fancies;  now  it  is  the  turn  of 
moral  and  psychological  ideas.  The  best  issue  from  the 
present  Babel  would  be  the  formation  or  the  sketching  out 
of  a  truly  scientific  science  of  man. 

February  16,  1874. — The  multitude,  who  already  possess 
force,  and  even,  according  to  the  Republican  view,  right, 
have  always  been  persuaded  by  the  Cleons  of  the  day  that 
enlightenment,  wisdom,  thought,  and  reason,  are  also 
theirs.  The  game  of  these  conjurors  and  quacks  of  uni- 
versal suffrage  has  always  been  to  flatter  the  crowd  in  order 
to  make  an  instrument  of  it.  They  pretend  to  adore  the 
puppet  of  which  they  pull  the  threads. 

The  theory  of  radicalism  is  a  piece  of  juggling,  for  it 
supposes  premises  of  which  it  knows  the  falsity;  it  manu- 
factures the  oracle  whose  revelations  it  pretends  to  adore; 
it  proclaims  that  the  multitude  creates  a  brain  for  itself, 
while  all  the  time  it  is  the  clever  man  who  is  the  brain  of 
the  multitude,  and  suggests  to  it  what  it  is  supposed  to 
invent.  To  reign  by  flattery  has  been  the  common  practice 
of  the  courtiers  of  all  despotisms,  the  favorites  of  all 
tyrants;  it  is  an  old  and  trite  method,  but  none  the  less 
odious  for  that. 

The  honest  politician  should  worship  nothing  but  reason 
and  justice,  and  it  is  his  business  to  preach  them  to  the 
masses,  who  represent,  on  an  average,  the  age  of  childhood 
and  not  that  of  maturity.  We  corrupt  childhood  if  we  tell 
it  that  it  cannot  be  mistaken,  and  that  it  knows  more  than 
its  elders.  We  corrupt  the  masses  when  we  tell  them  that 
they  are  wise  and  far-seeing  and  possess  the  gift  of 
infallibility. 

It  is  one  of  Montesquieu's  subtle  remarks,  that  the  more 
wise  men  you  heap  together  the  less  wisdom  you  will  ob- 
tain. Eadicalism  pretends  that  the  greater  number  of 
illiterate,  passionate,  thoughtless — above  all,  young  people^ 


872  AMIKU8  JO  URNA L. 

yon  heap  together,  the  greater  will  be  the  enlightenment 
resulting.  The  second  thesis  is  no  doubt  the  repartee  to 
the  first,  but  the  joke  is  a  bad  one.  All  that  can  be  got 
from  a  crowd  is  instinct  or  passion;  the  instinct  may  be 
good,  but  the  passion  may  be  bad,  and  neither  is  the 
instinct  capable  of  producing  a  clear  idea,  nor  the  passion 
of  leading  to  a  just  resolution. 

A  crowd  is  a  material  force,  and  the  support  of  numbers 
gives  a  proposition  the  force  of  law;  but  that  wise  and 
ripened  temper  of  mind  which  takes  everything  into 
account,  and  therefore  tends  to  truth,  is  never  engendered 
by  the  impetuosity  of  the  masses.  The  masses  are  the 
material  of  democracy,  but  its  form — that  is  to  say,  the 
laws  which  express  the  general  reason,  justice,  and  utility 
— can  only  be  rightly  shaped  by  wisdom,  which  is  by  no 
means  a  universal  property.  The  fundamental  error  of 
the  radical  theory  is  to  confound  the  right  to  do  good  with 
good  itself,  and  universal  suffrage  with  universal  wisdom. 
It  rests  upon  a  legal  fiction,  which  assumes  a  real  equality 
of  enlightenment  and  merit  among  those  whom  it  declares 
electors.  It  is  quite  possible,  however,  that  these  electors 
may  not  desire  the  public  good,  and  that  even  if  they  do, 
they  may  be  deceived  as  to  the  manner  of  realizing  it. 
Universal  suffrage  is  not  a  dogma — it  is  an  instrument; 
and  according  to  the  population  in  whose  hands  it  is 
placed,  the  instrument  is  serviceable  or  deadly  to  the  pro- 
prietor. 

February  27,  1874. — Among  the  peoples,  in  whom  the 
social  gifts  are  the  strongest,  the  individual  fears  ridicule 
above  all  things,  and  ridicule  is  the  certain  result  of 
originality.  No  one,  therefore,  wishes  to  make  a  party  of 
his  own;  every  one  wishes  to  be  on  the  side  of  all  the 
world.  "All  the  world"  is  the  greatest  of  powers;  it  is 
sovereign,  and  calls  itself  tve.  We  dress,  ice  dine,  we  walk, 
we  go  out,  we  come  in,  like  this,  and  not  like  that.  This 
we  is  always  right,  whatever  it  does.  The  subjects  of  We 
are  more  prostrate  than  the  slaves  of  the  East  before  the 
Padishah.      The  good  pleasure  of  the  sovereign  decides 


A  MTEUS  JO  UHNA L.  273 

every  appeal ;  his  caprice  is  law.  What  we  does  or  says  is 
called  custom,  what  it  thinks  is  called  opinion,  what  it  be- 
lieves to  be  beautiful  or  good  is  called  fashion.  Among  such 
nations  as  these  we  is  the  brain,  the  conscience,  the  reason, 
the  taste,  and  the  judgment  of  all.  The  individual  finds 
everything  decided  for  him  without  his  troubling  about 
it.  He  is  dispensed  from  the  task  of  finding  out  anything 
whatever.  Provided  that  he  imitates,  copies,  and  repeats 
the  models  furnished  by  we,  he  has  nothing  more  to  fear. 
He  knows  all  that  he  need  know,  and  has  entered  into 
salvation. 

April  29,  1874. — Strange  reminiscence!  At  the  end  of 
the  terrace  of  La  Treille,  on  the  eastern  side,  as  I  looked 
down  the  slope,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  saw  once  more  in 
imagination  a  little  path  which  existed  there  when  I  was 
a  child,  and  ran  through  the  bushy  underwood,  which  was 
thicker  then  than  it  is  now.  It  is  at  least  forty  years  since 
this  impression  disappeared  from  my  mind.  The  revival 
of  an  image  so  dead  and  so  forgotten  set  me  thinking. 
Consciousness  seems  to  be  like  a  book,  in  which  the  leaves 
turned  by  life  successively  cover  and  hide  each  other  in. 
spite  of  their  semi-transparency;  but  although  the  book 
may  be  open  at  the  page  of  the  present,  the  wind,  for  a 
few  seconds,  may  blow  back  the  first  pages  into  view. 

And  at  death  will  these  leaves  cease  to  hide  each  other, 
and  shall  we  see  all  our  past  at  once?  Is  death  the  passage 
from  the  successive  to  the  simultaneous — that  is  to  say, 
from  time  to  eternity?  Shall  we  then  understand,  in  its 
nnity,  the  poem  or  mysterious  episode  of  our  existence, 
which  till  then  we  have  spelled  out  phrase  by  phrase?  And 
is  this  the  secret  of  that  glory  which  so  often  enwraps  the 
brow  and  countenance  of  those  who  are  newly  dead?  If 
so,  death  would  be  like  the  arrival  of  a  traveler  at  the  top 
of  a  great  mountain,  whence  he  sees  spread  out  before  him 
the  whole  configuration  of  the  country,  of  which  till  then 
he  had  had  but  passing  glimpses.  To  be  able  to  overlook 
one's  own  history,  to  divine  its  meaning  in  the  general  con- 
cert and  in  the  divine  plan,  would  be  the  beginning  of 


•274  AMTKL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

«ternal  felijity.  Till  then  we  had  sacrificed  ourselves  ta 
the  universal  order,  but  then  we  should  understand  and 
appreciate  the  beauty  of  that  order.  We  had  toiled  and 
labored  under  the  conductor  of  the  orchestra;  and  we 
should  find  ourselves  become  surprised  and  delighted 
hearers.  We  had  seen  nothing  but  our  own  little  path  ic 
the  mist;  and  suddenly  a  marvelous  panorama  and  bound- 
iess  distances  would  open  before  our  dazzled  eyes.  Why 
not? 

May  31,  1874. — I  have  been  reading  the  philosophical 
poems  of  Madame  Ackermann.  She  has  rendered  in  fine 
verse  that  sense  of  desolation  which  has  been  so  often 
stirred  in  me  by  the  philosophy  of  Schopenhauer,  of  Hart- 
mann,  Comte,  and  Darwin.  What  tragic  force  and  power! 
What  thought  and  passion!  She  has  courage  for  every- 
thing, and  attacks  the  most  tremendous  subjects. 

Science  is  implacable;  will  it  suppress  all  religions?  All 
those  which  start  from  a  false  conception  of  nature,  cer- 
tainly. But  if  the  scientific  conception  of  nature  proves 
incapable  of  bringing  harmony  and  peace  to  man,  what 
will  happen?  Despair  is  not  a  durable  situation.  We 
shall  have  to  build  a  moral  city  without  God,  without  an 
immortality  of  the  soul,  without  hope.  Buddhism  and 
stoicism  present  themselves  as  possible  alternatives. 

But  even  if  we  suppose  that  there  is  no  finality  in  the 
cosmos,  it  is  certain  that  man  has  ends  at  which  he  aims, 
"ttnd  if  so  the  notion  of  end  or  purpose  is  a  real  phenome- 
non, although  a  limited  one.  Physical  science  may  very 
well  be  limited  by  moral  science,  and  vice  versd.  J3ut  if 
these  two  conceptions  of  the  world  are  in  opposition,  which 
must  give  way?  .  ' 

I  still  incline  to  believe  that  nature  is  the  virtuality  of 
mind — that  the  soul  is  the  fruit  of  life,  and  liberty  the 
flower  of  necessity — that  all  is  bound  together,  and  that 
nothing  can  be  done  without.  Our  modern  philosophy 
has  returned  to  the  point  of  view  of  the  lonians,  the 
tpv6tKoiy  or  naturalist  thinkers.  But  it  will  have  to 
pass  once  more  through  Plato   and    through    Aristotle. 


AMI KL'S  JO  URNAL.  275 

through  the  philosophy  of  "goodness"  and  "purpose," 
through  the  science  of  mind. 

July  3, 1874. — Rehellion  against  common  sense  is  a  piece 
of  childishness  of  which  I  am  quite  capable.  But  it  does 
not  last  long.  I  am  soon  brouglit  back  to  the  advantages 
and  obligations  of  my  situation ;  I  return  to  a  calmer  self- 
consciousness.  It  is  disagreeable  to  me,  no  doubt,  tc 
realize  all  that  is  hopelsesly  lost  to  me,  all  that  is  now  and 
will  be  forever  denied  to  me ;  but  I  reckon  up  my  privileges 
as  well  as  my  losses — I  lay  stress  on  what  I  have,  and  not  only 
on  what  I  want.  And  so  I  escape  from  that  terrible 
dilemma  of  "all  or  nothing,"  which  for  me  always  ends  in 
the  adoption  of  the  second  alternative.  It  seems  to  me  at 
such  times  that  a  man  may  without  shame  content  him- 
self with  being  some  thing  and  some  one — 

"  Ni  si  haut,  ni  si  bas  .  .  ." 

These  brusque  lapses  into  the  formless,  indeterminate 
state,  are  the  price  of  my  critical  faculty.  All  my  former 
habits  become  suddenly  fluid;  it  seems  tome  that  I  am 
beginning  life  over  again,  and  that  all  my  acquired  capital 
has  disappeared  at  a  stroke.  I  am  forever  new-born;  I 
am  a  mind  which  has  never  taken  to  itself  a  body,  a  coun- 
try, an  avocation,  a  sex,  a  species.  Am  I  even  quite  sure 
of  being  a  man,  a  European,  an  inhabitant  of  this  earth? 
[t  seems  to  me  so  easy  to  be  something  else,  that  to  be 
what  I  am  appears  to  me  a  mere  piece  of  arbitrary  choice. 
I  cannot  possibly  take  an  accidental  structure  of  which  the 
value  is  purely  relative,  seriously.  When  once  a  man  has 
touched  the  absolute,  all  that  might  be  other  than  what  it 
is  seems  to  him  indiiferent.  All  these  ants  pursuing  their 
private  ends  excite  his  mirth.  He  looks  down  from  the 
moon  upon  his  hovel;  he  beholds  the  earth  from  the 
heights  of  the  sun;  he  considers  his  life  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Hindoo  pondering  the  days  of  Brahma;  he 
sees  the  finite  from  the  distance  of  the  infinite,  and 
thenceforward  the  insignificance  of  all  those  things  which 
men  hold  to  be  important  makes  effort  ridiculoup,  passion 
burlesque,  and  prejudice  absurd. 


276  AM1EU8  JOURNAL. 

August  7,  1874.  (Clarens). — A  day  perfectly  beautiful, 
luminous,  limpid,  brilliant. 

I  passed  the  morning  in  the  churchyard;  the  "Oasis" 
was  delightful.  Innumerable  sensations,  sweet  and  serious, 
peaceful  and  solemn,  passed  over  me.  .  .  .  Around 
me  Eussians,  English,  Swedes,  Germans,  were  sleeping 
■their  last  sleep  under  the  shadow  of  the  Cubly.  The  land- 
scape was  one  vast  splendor;  the  woods  were  deep  and  mys- 
terious, the  roses  full  blown;  all  around  me  were  butter- 
flies— a  noise  of  wings — the  murmur  of  birds.  I  caught 
glimpses  through  the  trees  of  distant  mists,  of  soaring 
mountains,  of  the  tender  blue  of  the  lake.  .  .  A  little 
conjunction  of  things  struck  me.  Two  ladies  were  tend- 
ing and  watering  a  grave;  two  nurses  were  suckling  their 
children.  This  double  protest  against  death  had  something 
touching  and  poetical  in  it.  "Sleep,  you  who  are  dead; 
we,  tlie  living,  are  thinking  of  you,  or  at  least  carrying  on 
the  pilgrimage  of  the  race !  "  such  seemed  to  me  the  words 
in  my  ear.  It  was  clear  to  me  that  the  Oasis  of  Clarens  is 
the  spot  in  which  I  should  like  to  rest.  Here  I  am 
surrounded  with  memories;  here  death  is  like  a  sleep — a 
sleep  instinct  with  hope. 


Hope  is  not  forbidden  us,  but  peace  and  submission  are 
the  essentials. 

September  1,  1874.  {Clarens). — On  waking  it  seemed  to 
me  that  I  was  staring  into  the  future  with  wide  startled 
eyes.  Is  it  indeed  to  me  that  these  things  apply.*  Inces- 
sant and  growing  humiliation,  my  slavery  becoming  heavier, 
my  circle  of  action  steadily  narrower!  .  .  .  What  is 
hateful  in  my  situation  is  that  deliverance  can  never  be 
hoped  for,  and  that  one  misery  will  succeed  another  in 
such  a  way  as  to  leave  me  no  breathing  space,  not  even  in 
the  future,  not  even  in  hope.  All  possibilities  are  closed 
to  me,  one  by  one.  It  is  difficult  for  the  natural  man  to 
escape  from  a  dumb  rage  against  inevitable  agony. 

*  Amiel  bad  just  received  at  tlie  hands  of  bis  doctor  tbe  medical 
verdict,  wbicb  was  bis  arret  de  mort. 


AMTEL'S  JOURNAL.  277 

Noon. — An  indifferent  nature?  A  Satanic  principle  of 
things?  A  good  and  just  God?  Three  points  of  view. 
The  second  is  improbable  and  horrible.  The  first  appeaU 
to  our  stoicism.  My  organic  combination  has  never  been 
anything  but  mediocre;  it  has  lasted  as  long  as  it  could. 
Every  man  has  his  turn,  and  all  must  submit.  To  die 
quickly  is  a  privilege ;  I  shall  die  by  inches.  Well,  submit. 
Rebellion  would  be  useless  and  senseless.  After  all,  I 
belong  to  the  better-endowed  half  of  human-kind,  and  my 
lot  is  superior  to  the  average. 

But  the  third  point  of  view  alone  can  give  joy.  Only  is 
it  tenable?  Is  there  a  particular  Providence  directing  all 
the  circumstances  of  our  life,  and  therefore  imposing  all 
our  trials  upon  ns  for  educational  ends?  Is  this  heroic 
faith  compatible  with  our  actual  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
nature?  Scarcely.  But  what  this  faith  makes  objective 
we  may  hold  as  subjective  truth.  The  moral  being  may 
moralize  his  sufferings  by  using  natural  facts  for  his  own 
inner  education.  What  he  cannot  change  he  calls  the  will 
of  God,  and  to  will  what  God  wills  brings  him  peace. 

To  nature  both  our  continued  existence  and  our  morality 
are  equally  indifferent.  But  God,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
God  is,  desires  our  sanctification ;  and  if  suffering  purifies 
US,  then  we  may  console  ourselves  or  suffering.  This  is 
what  makes  the  great  advantage  of  the  Christian  faith;  it 
is  the  triumph  over  pain,  the  victory  over  death.  There  is 
but  one  thing  necessary — death  unto  sin,  the  immolation 
of  our  selfish  will,  the  filial  sacrifice  of  our  desires.  Evil 
consists  in  living  for  self — that  is  to  say,  for  one's  own 
vanity,  pride,  sensuality,  or  even  health.  Righteousness 
consists  in  willingly  accepting  one's  lot,  in  submitting  to, 
and  espousing  the  destiny  assigned  us,  in  willing  what 
God  commands,  in  renouncing  what  he  forbids  us,  in  con- 
senting to  what  he  takes  from  us  or  refuses  us. 

In  my  own  particular  case,  what  has  been  taken  from 
me  is  health — that  is  to  say,  the  surest  basis  of  all  inde- 
pendence; but  friendship  and  material  comfort  are  still 
left  to  me;  I  am  neither  called  upon  to  bear  the  slavery  of 
poverty  nor  the  hell  of  absolute  isolation. 


-378  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

Health  cut  off,  means  marriage,  travel,  study,  and  wort 
forbidden  or  endangered.  It  means  life  reduced  in  attrac- 
tiveness and  utility  by  five-sixths. 

Thy  will  be  done! 

September  14,  1874.  (Charnex). — A  long  walk  and  con- 
versation with .     We  followed  a  high  mountain  path. 

Seated  on  the  turf,  and  talking  with  open  heart,  our  eyes 
wandered  over  the  blue  immensity  below  us,  and  the  smil- 
ing outlines  of  the  shore.  All  was  friendly,  azure-tinted, 
caressing,  to  the  sight.  The  soul  I  was  reading  was 
profound  and  pure.  Such  an  experience  is  like  a  flight 
into  paradise.  A  few  light  clouds  climbed  the  broad 
spaces  of  the  sky,  steamers  made  long  tracks  upon  the 
water  at  our  feet,  white  sails  were  dotted  over  the  vast  dis- 
tance of  the  lake,  and  sea-gulls  like  gigantic  butterflies 
quivered  above  its  rippling  surface. 

September  21,  1874.  {Charnex). — A  wonderful  day! 
Never  has  the  lake  been  bluer,  or  the  landscape  softer.  It 
was  enchanting.  But  tragedy  is  hidden  under  the 
eclogue;  the  serpent  crawls  under  tlie  flowers.  All  the 
future  is  dark.  The  phantoms  which  for  three  or  four 
weeks  I  have  been  able  to  keep  at  bay,  wait  for  me  behind 
the  door,  as  the  Eumenides  waited  for  Orestes.  Hemmed 
in  on  all  sides  I 

"  On  ne  croit  plus  a  son  etoile. 
On  sent  que  derriere  la  toile 
Sont  le  deuil,  les  maux  et  la  mort." 

For  a  fortnight  I  have  been  happy,  and  now  this  happi- 
ness is  going. 

There  are  no  more  birds,  but  a  few  white  or  blue  butter- 
flies are  still  left.  Flowers  are  becoming  rare — a  few 
daisies  in  the  fields,  some  blue  or  yellow  chicories  and  col- 
chicums,  some  wild  geraniums  growing  among  fragments 
of  old  walls,  and  the  brown  berries  of  the  privet — this  is 
all  we  were  able  to  find.  In  the  fields  they  are  digging 
potatoes,  beating  down  the  nuts,  and  beginning  the  apple 
harvest.  The  leaves  are  thinning  and  clranging  color;  I 
watch  them  turning  red  on  the  pear-trees,  gray  on  the 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  279 

plums,  yellow  on  the  walnut-trees,  and  tinging  tlie 
thickiy-strewn  turf  with  shades  of  reddish-brown.  We 
are  nearing  the  end  of  the  fine  weather;  the  coloring  is 
the  coloring  of  late  autumn;  there  is  no  need  now  to  keep 
out  of  the  sun.  Everything  is  soberer,  more  measured, 
more  fugitive,  less  emphatic.  Energy  is  gone,  youth  is 
past,  prodigality  at  an  end,  the  summer  over.  The  year 
is  on  the  wane  and  tends  toward  winter ;  it  is  once  more 
in  harmony  with  my  owix  age  and  position,  and  next  Sun- 
day it  will  keep  my  birthday.  All  these  different  con- 
sonances form  a  melancholy  harmony. 


The  distinguishing  mark  of  religion  is  not  so  much 
liberty  as  obedience,  and  its  value  is  measured  by  the  sac* 
rifices  which  it  can  extract  from  the  individual. 


A  young  girl's  love  is  a  kind  of  piety.  We  must  approach 
it  with  adoration  if  we  are  not  to  profane  it,  and  with 
poetry  if  we  are  to  understand  it.  If  there  is  anything 
in  the  world  which  giveh  ns  a  sweet,  ineffable  impression 
of  the  ideal,  it  is  this  trembling  modest  love.  To  deceive 
it  would  be  a  crime.  Merely  io  watch  its  unfolding  life 
is  bliss  to  the  beholder ;  he  sees  in  it  the  birth  of  a  divine 
marvel.  When  the  garland  of  youth  fades  on  our  brow, 
let  us  try  at  least  to  have  the  virtues  of  mat'arity ;  may  we 
grow  better,  gentler,  graver,  like  the  fruit  of  the  vine, 
while  its  leaf  withers  and  falls. 


To  know  how  to  grow  old  is  the  master  work  of  wisdom, 
and  one  of  the  most  diflScult  chapters  in  the  great  art  of 
living. 


He  who  asks  of  life  nothing  but  the  improvement  of  his 
cwn  nature,  and  a  continuous  moral  progress  toward 
inward  contentment  and  religious  submission,  is  less  liable 
than  any  one  else  to  miss  and  waste  life. 

January  2,  1875.  (Hyeres.) — In  spite  of  my  sleeping 
draught  I  have  haa  a  bad  night.  Once  it  seemed  as  if  I 
must  choke,  for  I  could  breathe  neitJier  way. 


280  AMIEU 8  JOURNAL. 

Could  I  be  more  fragile,  more  sensitive,  more  vulner- 
able! People  talk  to  me  as  if  there  were  still  a  c^reei 
before  me,  while  all  the  time  I  know  that  the  ground  ia 
slipping  from  under  me,  and  that  the  defense  of  my 
health  ia  already  a  hopeless  task.  At  bottom,  I  am  only 
living  on  out  of  complaisance  and  without  a  shadow  of 
self-delusion.  I  know  that  not  one  of  my  desires  will  be 
realized,  and  for  a  long  time  I  have  had  no  desires  at  all. 
I  simply  accept  what  comes  to  me  as  though  it  were  a  bird 
perching  on  my  window.  I  smile  at  it,  but  I  know  very 
well  that  my  visitor  has  wings  and  will  not  stay  long. 
The  resignation  which  comes  from  despair  has  a  kind  of 
melancholy  sweetnjess.  It  looks  at  life  as  a  man  sees  it 
from  his  death-bed,  and  judges  it  without  bitterness  and 
without  vain  regrets. 

I  no  longer  hope  to  get  well,  or  to  be  useful,  or  to  be 
happy.  I  hope  that  those  who  have  loved  me  will  love  me 
to  the  end;  I  should  wish  to  have  done  them  some  good, 
and  to  leave  them  a  tender  memory  of  myself.  I  wish  to 
die  without  rebellion  and  without  weakness;  that  is  about 
all.  Is  this  relic  of  hope  and  of  desire  still  too  much? 
Let  all  be  as  God  will.     I  resign  myself  into  his  hands. 

January  22, 1875.  (Hydres). — The  French  mind,  accord- 
ing to  Gioberti,  apprehends  only  the  outward  form  of 
truth,  and  exaggerates  it  by  isolating  it,  so  that  it  acts  as 
a  solvent  upon  the  realities  with  which  it  works.  It  takes 
the  shadow  for  the  substance,  the  word  for  the  thing, 
appearance  for  reality,  and  abstract  formula  for  truth.  It 
lives  in  a  world  of  intellectual  assignats.  If  you  talk  to  a 
Frenchman  of  art,  of  language,  of  religion,  of  the  state, 
of  duty,  of  the  family,  you  feel  in  his  way  of  speaking 
thai  his  thought  remains  outside  the  subject,  that  he 
never  penetrates  into  its  substance,  its  inmost  core.  He 
is  not  striving  to  understand  it  in  its  essence,  but  only  to 
say  something  plausible  about  it.  On  his  lips  the  noblest 
words  become  thin  and  empty;  for  example — mind,  idea, 
religion.  The  French  mind  is  superficial  and  yet  not  com- 
prehensive; it  has  an  extraordinarily  fine  edge,  and  yet  no 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  281 

penetrating  power.  Its  desire  is  to  enjoy  its  own  resources 
by  the  help  of  things,  but  it  has  none  of  the  respect,  the 
disinterestedness,  the  patience,  and  the  self-forgetfulness, 
which  are  indispensable  if  we  wish  to  see  things  as  they  are. 
Far  from  being  the  philosophic  mind,  it  is  a  mere  counter- 
feit of  it,  for  it  does  not  enable  a  man  to  solve  any  prob- 
lem whatever,  and  remains  incapable  of  understanding  all 
that  is  living,  complex,  and  concrete.  Abstraction  is  its 
original  sin,  presumption  its  incurable  defect,  and  plausi- 
bility its  fatal  limit. 

The  French  language  has  no  power  of  expressing  truths 
of  birth  and  germination;  it  paints  effects,  results,  the 
caput  mortuum,  but  not  the  cause,  the  motive  power, 
the  native  force  the  development  of  any  phenomenon  what- 
ever. It  is  analytic  and  descriptive,  but  it  explains  nothing, 
for  it  avoids  all  beginnings  and  processes  of  formation. 
With  it  crystallization  is  not  the  mysterious  act  itself  by 
which  a  substance  passes  from  the  fluid  state  to  the  solid 
state.     It  is  the  product  of  that  act. 

The  thirst  for  truth  is  not  a  French  passion.  In  every- 
thing appearance  is  preferred  to  reality,  the  outside  to  the 
inside,  the  fashion  to  the  material,  that  which  shines  to 
that  which  profits,  opinion  to  conscience.  That  is  to  say, 
the  Frenchman's  center  of  gravity  is  always  outside  him — 
he  is  always  thinking  of  others,  playing  to  the  gallery.  To 
him  individuals  are  so  many  zeros;  the  unit  which  turns 
them  into  a  number  must  be  added  from  outside ;  it  may 
be  royalty,  the  writer  of  the  day,  the  favorite  newspaper, 
or  any  other  temporary  master  of  fashion.  All  this  is 
probably  the  result  of  an  exaggerated  sociability,  which 
weakens  the  soul's  forces  of  resistence,  destroys  its  capacity 
for  investigation  and  personal  conviction,  and  kills  in  it 
the  worship  of  the  ideal. 

January  27,  1875.  {Hyeres). — The  whole  atmosphere  has 
a  luminous  serenity,  a  limpid  clearness.  The  islands  are 
like  swans  swimming  in  a  golden  stream.  Peace,  splendor, 
boundless  space!  .  .  .  And  I  meanwhile  look  quietly 
on  while  the  soft  hours  glide  away.     I  long  to  catch  the 


282  AMIEL'8  JOURNAL, 

wild  bird,  happiness,  and  tame  it.  Above  all,  I  long  *.9 
share  it  with  others.  These  delicious  mornings  impress 
me  indescribably.  They  intoxicate  me,  they  carry  ma 
away.  I  feel  beguiled  out  of  myself,  dissolved  in  sunbeams, 
breezes,  perfumes,  and  sudden  impulses  of  joy.  And  yet 
all  the  time  I  pine  for  I  know  not  what  intangible  Eden. 

Lamartine  in  the  "  Preludes"  has  admirably  described  this 
oppressive  effect  of  happiness  on  fragile  human  nature. 
I  suspect  that  the  reason  for  it  is  that  the  finite  creature 
feels  itself  invaded  by  the  infinite,  and  the  invasion  pro- 
duces dizziness,  a  kind  of  vertigo,  a  longing  to  fling  one's 
self  into  the  great  gulf  of  being.  To  feel  life  too  intensely 
is  to  yearn  for  death;  and  for  man,  to  die  means  to  become 
like  unto  the  gods — to  be  initiated  into  the  great  mystery. 
Pathetic  and  beautiful  illusion. 

Ten  o^cloch  in  the  evening. — From  one  end  to  the  other 
the  day  has  been  perfect,  and  my  walk  this  afternoon  to 
Beau  Vallon  was  one  long  delight.  It  was  like  an  expedi- 
tion into  Arcadia.  Here  was  a  wild  and  woodland  corner, 
which  would  have  made  a  fit  setting  for  a  dance  of  nymphs, 
and  there  an  ilex  overshadowing  a  rock,  which  reminded 
me  of  an  ode  of  Horaco  or  a  drawing  of  Tibur.  I  felt  a 
kind  of  certainty  that  the  landscape  had  much  that  was 
Greek  in  it.  And  what  made  the  sense  of  resemblance 
che  more  striking  was  the  sea,  which  one  feels  to  be  always 
near,  though  one  may  not  see  it,  and  which  any  turn  of 
the  valley  may  bring  into  view.  We  found  out  a  little 
tower  with  an  overgrown  garden,  of  which  the  owner 
might  have  been  taken  for  a  husbandman  of  the  Odyssey. 
He  could  scarcely  speak  any  French,  but  was  not  without 
a  certain  grave  dignity.  I  translated  to  him  the  inscrip- 
tion on  his  sun-dial,  "  Hora  est  benefacie7idi,'*  which  is 
beautiful,  and  pleased  him  greatly.  It  would  be  an 
inspiring  place  to  write  a  novel  in.  Only  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  little  den  would  have  a  decent  room,  and  one 
would  certainly  have  to  live  upon  eggs,  milk,  and  figs,  like 
Philemon. 

February  15,1875.  (Hyeres). — I  have  just  been  reading 


AMI  EL' 8  JOURNAL.  283 

che  two  last  "  Discours  "  at  the  French  Academy, 'linger- 
ing over  every  word  and  weighing  every  idea.  This  kind 
of  writing  is  a  sort  of  intellectual  dainty,  for  it  is  the  art 
"of  expressing  truth  with  all  the  courtesy  and  finesse  pos- 
sible; "  the  art  of  appearing  perfectly  at  ease  without  the 
smallest  loss  of  manners;  of  being  gracefully  sincere,  and 
of  making  criticism  itself  a  pleasure  to  the  person  criti- 
cized. Legacy  as  it  is  from  the  monarchical  tradition,  this 
particular  kind  of  eloquence  is  the  distinguishing  mark 
of  those  men  of  the  world  who  are  also  men  of  breeding, 
and  those  men  of  letters  who  are  also  gentlemen.  Democ- 
racy could  never  have  invented  it,  and  in  this  delicate 
genre  of  literature  France  may  give  points  to  all  rival 
peoples,  for  it  is  the  fruit  of  that  refined  and  yet  vigorous 
social  sense  which  is  produced  by  court  and  drawing-room 
life,  by  literature  and  good  company,  by  means  of  a 
mutual  education  continued  for  centuries.  This  compli- 
cated product  is  as  original  in  its  way  as  Athenian  elo- 
quence, but  it  is  less  healthy  and  less  durable.  If  ever 
France  becomes  Americanized  this  genre  at  least  will  per- 
ish, without  hope  of  revival. 

April  16,  1875.  {Hyeres). — I  have  already  gone  through 
the  various  emotions  of  leave-taking.  I  have  been  wander- 
ing slowly  through  the  streets  and  up  the  castle  hill, 
gathering  a  harvest  of  images  and  recollections.  Already 
I  am  full  of  regret  that  I  have  not  made  a  better  study  of 
the  country,  in  which  I  have  now  spent  four  mont^^s  and 
more.  It  is  like  what  happens  when  a  friend  dies ;  we 
accuse  ourselves  of  having  loved  him  too  little,  or  loved 
him  ill;  or  it  is  like  our  own  death,  when  we  look  back 
upon  life  and  feel  that  it  has  been  misspent. 

August  16, 1875. — Life  is  but  a  daily  oscillation  between 
revolt  and  submission,  between  the  instinct  of  the  ego, 
which  is  to  expand,  to  take  delight  in  its  own  tranquil 
sense  of  inviolability,  if  not  to  triumph  in  its  own  sover- 
eignty, and  the  instinct  of  the  soul,  which  is  to  obey  the 
universal  order,  to  accept  the  will  of  God. 

The  cold  renunciation  of  disillusioned  reason  brings  no 


284  A  MIEV8  JO  URN  A  L. 

real  peace.  Peace  is  only  to  be  found  in  reconciliation  with 
destiny,  when  destiny  seems,  in  the  religious  sense  of  the 
word,  good;  that  is  to  say,  when  man  feels  himself  directly  in 
the  presence  of  God.  Then,  and  then  only,  does  the  will 
acquiesce.  Nay  more,  it  only  completely  acquiesces  when 
it  adores.  The  soul  only  submits  to  the  hardness  of  fate 
by  virtue  of  its  discovery  of  a  sublime  compensation — the 
loving  kindness  of  the  Almighty.  That  is  to  say,  it  can- 
not resign  itself  to  lack  or  famine,  it  shrinks  from  the 
void  around  it,  and  the  happiness  either  of  hope  or  faith  is 
essential  to  it.  It  may  very  well  vary  its  objects,  but  some 
object  it  must  have.  It  may  renounce  its  former  idols, 
but  it  will  demand  another  cult.  The  soul  hungers  and 
thirsts  after  happiness,  and  it  is  in  vain  that  everything 
deserts  it — it  will  never  submit  to  its  abandonment. 

August  28,  1875.  (Geneva). — A  word  used  by  Sainte- 
Beuve  Apropos  of  Benjamin  Constant  has  struck  me:  it  is 
the  word  consideration.  To  possess  or  not  to  possess 
consideration  was  to  Madame  de  Stael  a  matter  of  su- 
preme importance — the  loss  of  it  an  irreparable  evil, 
the  acquirement  of  it  a  pressing  necessity.  What,  then, 
is  this  good  thing?  The  esteem  of  the  public.  And  how 
is  it  gained?  By  honorable  character  and  life,  combined 
with  a  certain  aggregate  of  services  rendered  and  of  suc- 
cesses obtained.  It  is  not  exactly  a  good  conscience,  but  it 
is  something  like  it,  for  it  is  the  witness  from  without,  if 
not  the  witness  from  within.  Consideration  is  not  reputa- 
tion, still  less  celebrity,  fame,  or  glory;  it  has  nothing  to 
do  with  savoir  /aire,  and  is  not  always  the  attendant  of 
talent  or  genius.  It  is  the  reward  given  to  constancy  in 
duty,  to  probity  of  conduct.  It  is  the  homage  rendered  to 
a  life  held  to  be  irreproachable.  It  is  a  little  more  than 
esteem,  and  a  little  less  than  admiration.  To  enjoy  public 
consideration  is  at  once  a  happiness  and  a  power.  The 
loss  of  it  is  a  misfortune  and  a  source  of  daily  suffering. 
Here  am  I,  at  the  age  of  fifty-three,  without  ever  having 
given  this  idea  the  smallest  place  in  my  life.  It  is 
curious,  but  the  desire  for  consideration  has  been  to  me  so 


AMIErS  JOURNAL.  285 

Httle  of  a  motive  that  I  have  not  even  been  conscious  of 
such  an  idea  at  all.  The  fact  shows,  I  suppose,  that  for 
me  the  audience,  the  gallery,  the  public,  has  never  had 
more  than  a  negative  importance.  I  have  neither  asked 
nor  expected  anything  from  it,  not  even  justice;  and  to  be 
a  dependent  upon  it,  to  solicit  its  suffrages  and  its  good 
graces,  has  always  seemed  to  me  an  act  of  homage  and 
flunkeyism  against  which  my  pride  has  instinctively 
rebelled.  I  have  never  even  tried  to  gain  the  good  will  of 
a  coterie  or  a  newspaper,  nor  so  much  as  the  vote  of  an 
elector.  And  yet  it  would  have  been  a  joy  to  me  to  be 
smiled  upon,  loved,  encouraged,  welcomed,  and  to  obtain 
what  I  was  so  ready  to  give,  kindness  and  good  will.  But 
to  hunt  down  consideration  and  reputation — to  force  the 
esteem  of  others — seemed  to  me  an  effort  unworthy  of  my- 
self, almost  a  degradation.  I  have  never  even  thought 
of  it. 

Perhaps  I  have  lost  consideration  by  my  indifference  to 
it.  Probably  I  have  disappointed  public  expectation  by 
thus  allowing  an  over-sensitive  and  irritable  consciousness 
to  lead  me  into  isolation  and  retreat.  I  know  that  the 
world,  which  is  only  eager  to  silence  you  when  you  do 
speak,  is  angry  with  your  silence  as  soon  as  its  own  action 
has  killed  in  you  the  wish  to  speak.  No  doubt,  to  be  silent 
with  a  perfectly  clear  conscience  a  man  must  not  hold  a 
public  office.  I  now  indeed  say  to  myself  that  a  professor 
is  morally  bound  to  justify  his  position  by  publication; 
that  students,  authorities,  and  public  are  placed  thereby  in 
a  healthier  relation  toward  him ;  that  it  is  necessary  for  his 
good  repute  in  the  world,  and  for  the  proper  maintenance 
of  his  position.  But  this  point  of  view  has  not  been  a 
familiar  one  to  me.  I  have  endeavored  to  give  conscien- 
tious lectures,  and  I  have  discharged  all  the  subsidiary 
duties  of  my  post  to  the  best  of  my  ability;  but  I  have 
never  been  able  to  bend  myself  to  a  struggle  with  hostile 
opinion,  for  all  the  while  my  heart  has  been  full  of  sadness 
and  disappointment,  and  I  have  known  and  felt  that  I 
have  been  systematically  and  deliberately  isolated.    Prema- 


286  ^MIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

ture  despair  and  the  deepest  discouragement  have  been  my 
constant  portion.  Incapable  of  taking  any  interest  in  ray 
talents  for  my  own  sake,  I  let  everything  slip  as  soon  as 
the  hope  of  being  loved  for  them  and  by  them  had  forsaken 
me.  A  hermit  against  my  will,  I  have  not  even  found 
peace  in  solitude,  because  my  inmost  conscience  has  not 
been  any  better  satisfied  than  my  heart. 

Does  not  all  this  make  up  a  melancholy  lot,  a  barren 
failure  of  a  life?  What  use  have  I  made  of  my  gifts,  of 
my  special  circumstances,  of  my  half -century  of  existence? 
What  have  1  paid  back  to  my  country?  Are  all  the  docu- 
ments I  have  produced,  taken  together,  my  correspond- 
ence, these  thousands  of  journal  pages,  my  lectures,  my 
articles,  my  poems,  my  notes  of  different  kinds,  anything 
better  than  withered  leaves?  To  whom  and  to  what  have 
I  been  useful?  Will  my  name  survive  me  a  single  day, 
and  will  it  ever  mean  anything  to  anybody?  A  life  of  no 
account!  A  great  many  comings  and  goings,  a  great 
many  scrawls — for  nothing.  When  all  is  added  up — 
nothing!  And  worst  of  all,  it  has  not  been  a  life  used  up 
in  the  service  of  some  adored  object,  or  sacrificed  to  any 
future  hope.  Its  sufferings  will  have  been  vain,  its  renun- 
ciations useless,  its  sacrifices  gratuitous,  its  dreariness 
without  reward.  .  .  .  No,  I  am  wrong;  it  will  have 
had  its  secret  treasure,  its  sweetness,  its  reward.  It  will 
have  inspired  a  few  affections  of  great  price ;  it  will  have 
given  joy  to  a  few  souls;  its  hidden  existence  will  have 
had  some  value.  Besides,  if  in  itself  it  has  been  nothing, 
it  has  understood  much.  If  it  has  not  been  in  harmony 
with  the  great  order,  still  it  has  loved  it.  If  it  has  missed 
happiness  and  duty,  it  has  at  least  felt  its  own  nothing- 
ness, and  implored  its  pardon. 

Later  on. — There  is  a  great  affinity  in  me  with  the 
Hindoo  genius — that  mind,  vast,  imaginative,  loving, 
dreamy,  and  speculative,  but  destitute  of  ambition,  person- 
ality, and  will.  Pantheistic  disinterestedness,  the  efface- 
ment  of  the  self  in  the  great  whole,  womanish  gentleness, 
a  horror  of  slaughter,  antipathy  to  action — these  are  all 


A  MIEUS  JO  URN  A  L.  287 

present  in  my  nature,  in  the  nature  at  least  which  has 
been  developed  by  years  and  circumstances.  Still  the  West- 
has  also  had  its  part  in  me.  What  I  have  found  difficult 
is  to  keep  up  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  any  form,  nationality, 
or  individuality  whatever.  Hence  my  indifEerence  to  my 
own  person,  my  own  usefulness,  interest,  or  opinions  of 
the  moment.  What  does  it  all  matter?  Omnis  determinatio 
est  negatio.  Grief  localizes  us,  love  particularizes  us,  but 
thought  delivers  us  from  personality.  .  .  .  To  be  a 
-nan  is  a  poor  thing,  to  be  a  man  is  well ;  to  be  the  man — 
man  in  essence  and  in  principle — that  alone  is  to  be  desirtd. 

Yes,  but  in  these  Brahmanic  aspirations  what  becomes 
ot  the  subordination  of  the  individual  to  duty?  Pleasure 
may  lie  in  ceasing  to  be  individual,  but  duty  lies  in  per- 
forming the  microscopic  task  allotted  to  us.  The  problem 
set  before  us  is  to  bring  our  daily  task  into  the  temple  of 
contemplation  and  ply  it  there,  to  act  as  in  the  presence 
of  God,  to  interfuse  one's  little  part  with  religion.  So 
only  can  we  inform  the  detail  of  life,  all  that  is  passing, 
temporary,  and  insignificant,  with  beauty  and  nobility. 
So  may  we  dignify  and  consecrate  the  meanest  of  occupa- 
tions. So  may  we  feel  that  we  are  paying  our  tribute  to 
the  universal  work  and  the  eternal  will.  So  are  we  recon- 
ciled with  life  and  delivered  from  the  fear  of  death.  So 
are  we  in  order  and  at  peace. 

September  1,  1875. — I  have  been  working  for  some  hours 
at  my  article  on  Mme.  de  Stael,  but  with  what  labor,  what 
painful  elfort!  When  I  write  for  publication  every  word 
is  misery,  and  my  pen  stumbles  at  every  line,  so  anxious 
am  I  to  find  the  ideally  best  expression,  and  so  great  is  the 
number  of  possibilities  which  open  before  me  at  every 
step. 

Composition  demands  a  concentration,  decision,  and 
pliancy  which  I  no  longer  possess.  I  cannot  fuse  together 
materials  and  ideas.  If  we  are  to  give  anything  a  form, 
we  must,  so  xo  speak,  be  the  tyrants  of  it.*     We  must 

*  Comijare  this  paragraph  from  the  "Pensees"  of  a  new  writer, 
M.  Joseph  Roux,  a  country  cure,  living  in  a  remote  part  oi  the   Ba9 


288  AMIKL'S  JOURNAL. 

treat  our  subject  brutally,  and  not  be  always  trembling 
lest  we  are  doing  it  a  wrong.  We  must  be  able  to  trans- 
mute and  absorb  it  into  our  own  substance.  This  sort  of 
confident  effrontery  is  beyond  me :  my  whole  nature  tends 
to  that  impersonality  which  respects  and  subordinates 
itself  to  the  object ;  it  is  love  of  truth  which  holds  me  back 
.from  concluding  and  deciding.  And  then  I  am  always 
retracing  my  steps:  instead  of  going  forward  I  work  in 
a  circle :  I  am  afraid  of  having  forgotten  a  point,  of  having 
exaggerated  an  expression,  of  having  used  a  word  out  of 
place,  while  all  the  time  I  ought  to  have  been  thinking  of 
essentials  and  aiming  at  breadth  of  treatment.  I  do  not 
know  how  to  sacrifice  anything,  how  to  give  up  anything 
whatever.  Hurtful  timidity,  unprofitable  conscientious- 
ness, fatal  slavery  to  detail ! 

In  reality  I  have  never  given  much  thought  to  the  art 
of  writing,  to  the  best  way  of  mai:ing  an  article,  an  essay, 
a  book,  nor  have  I  ever  methodically  undergone  the 
writer's  apprenticeship ;  it  would  have  been  useful  to  me, 
and  I  was  always  ashamed  of  what  was  useful.  I  have  felt, 
as  it  were,  a  scruple  agamst  trying  to  surprise  the  secret  of 
the  masters  of  literature,  against  picking  chef-d^ceuvres  to 
pieces.  When  I  think  that  I  have  always  postponed  the 
serious  study  of  the  art  of  writing,  from  a  sort  of  awe  of 
it,  and  a  secret  love  of  its  beauty,  I  am  furious  with  my 
own  stupidity,  and  with  my  own  respect.  Practice  and 
routine  would  have  given  me  that  ease,  lightness,  and 
assurance,  without  which  the  natural  gift  and  impulse  dies 
away.  But  on  the  contrary,  I  have  developed  two  opposed 
habits  of  mind,  the  habit  of  scientific  analysis  which  ex- 
hausts the  material  offered  to  it,  and  the  habit  of  imme- 
diate notation  of  passing  impressions.  The  art  of  compo- 
sition lies  between   the  two;  you   want  for  it  both  the 

Limousin,  whose  thoaglits  liave  been  edited  and  published  this  year 
by  M.  Paul  Marieton  (Paris:  Alphonse  Lemerre): 

*'  Le  verbe  ne  souffre  et  ne  connait  que  la  volonte  qui  le  dompte, 
et  n'emporte  loin  sans  peril  que  I'intelligence  qui  lui  menage  avee 
•mpire  I'eperon  et  le  frein." 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  289 

living  unity  of  the  thing  and  the  sustained  operation  of 
thought. 

October  25,  1875. — I  have  been  listening  to  M.  Taine'a 
first  lecture  (on  the  "Ancien  Eegime")  delivered  in  the 
university  hall.  It  was  an  extremely  substantial  piece  of 
work — clear,  instructive,  compact,  and  full  of  matter. 
As  a  writer  he  shows  great  skill  in  the  French  method  of 
simplifying  his  subject  by  massing  it  in  large  striking  divi- 
sions ;  his  great  defect  is  a  constant  straining  after  points ; 
his  principal  merit  is  the  sense  he  has  of  historical  reality, 
his  desire  to  see  things  as  they  are.  For  the  rest,  he  has 
extreme  openness  of  mind,  freedom  of  thought,  and 
precision  of  language.     The  hall  was  crowded. 

October  26,  1875. — All  origins  are  secret;  the  principle 
of  every  individual  or  collective  life  is  a  mystery — that  is 
to  say,  something  irrational,  inexplicable,  not  to  be 
defined.  We  may  even  go  farther  and  say.  Every  indi- 
viduality is  an  insoluble  enigma,  and  no  beginning  ex- 
plains it.  In  fact,  all  that  has  become  may  be  explained 
retrospectively,  but  the  beginning  of  anything  whatever 
did  not  become.  It  represents  always  the  ^^fiat  lux,^''  the 
initial  miracle,  the  act  of  creation;  for  it  is  the  conse- 
quence of  nothing  else,  it  simply  appears  among  anterior 
things  which  make  a  milieu,  an  occasion,  a  surrounding 
for  it,  but  which  are  witnesses  of  its  appearance  without 
understanding  whence  it  comes. 

Perhaps  also  there  are  no  true  individuals,  and,  if  so,  no 
beginning  but  one  only,  the  primordial  impulse,  the  first 
movement.  All  men  on  this  hypothesis  would  be  but 
ma7i  in  two  sexes;  man  again  might  be  reduced  to  the 
animal,  the  animal  to  the  plant,  and  the  only  individuality 
left  would  be  a  living  nature,  reduced  to  a  living  matter, 
to  the  hylozoism  of  Thales.  However,  even  upon  this 
hypothesis,  if  there  were  but  one  absolute  beginning,  rela- 
tive beginnings  would  still  remain  to  us  as  multiple  sym- 
bols of  the  absolute.  Every  life,  called  individual  for  con- 
venience sake  and  by  analogy,  would  represent  in  miniature 
the  history  of  the  world,  and  would  be  to  the  eye  of  the 
philosopher  a  miscroscopic  compendium  of  it. 


290  AMI  EL' 8  JOURNAL. 

The  history  of  the  formation  of  ideas  is  what  frees  the 
mind. 


A  philosophic  truth  does  not  become  popular  until  some 
eloquent  soul  has  humanized  it  or  some  gifted  personality 
has  translated  and  embodied  it.  Pure  truth  cannot  be 
assimilated  by  the  crowd;  it  must  be  communicated  by 
contagion. 

January  30, 1876. — After  dinner  I  went  two  steps  off,  to 
Marc  Monnier's,  to  hear  the  "Luthier  de  Cremone,"  a 
one-act  comedy  in  verse,  read  by  the  author,  Frangois 
Coppee. 

It  was  a  feast  of  fine  sensations,  of  literary  dainties.  For 
the  little  piece  is  a  pearl.  It  is  steeped  in  poetry,  and 
every  line  is  a  fresh  pleasure  to  one's  taste. 

This  young  maestro  is  like  the  violin  he  writes  about, 
vibrating  and  passionate;  he  has,  besides  delicacy,  point, 
grace,  all  that  a  writer  wants  to  make  what  is  simple,  naive, 
heartfelt,  and  out  of  the  beaten  track,  acceptable  to  a  cul- 
tivated society. 

How  to  return  to  nature  through  art:  there  is  the 
problem  of  all  highly  composite  literatures  like  our  own. 
Rousseau  himself  attacked  letters  with  all  the  resources  of 
the  art  of  writing,  and  boasted  the  delights  of  savage  life 
with  a  skill  and  adroitness  developed  only  by  the  most 
advanced  civilization.  And  it  is  indeed  this  marriage  of  con- 
traries which  charms  us;  this  spiced  gentleness,  this 
learned  innocence,  this  calculated  simplicity,  this  yes  and 
no,  this  foolish  wisdom.  It  is  the  supreme  irony  of  such 
combinations  which  tickles  the  taste  of  advanced  and  arti- 
ficial epochs,  epochs  when  men  ask  for  two  sensations  at 
once,  like  the  contrary  meanings  fused  by  the  smile  of  La 
Gioconda.  And  our  satisfaction,  too,  in  Avork  of  this  kind 
is  best  expressed  by  that  ambiguous  curve  of  the  lip  which 
says:  I  feel  your  charm,  but  I  am  not  your  dupe;  I  see  the 
illusion  both  from  within  and  from  without;  I  yield  to 
you,  but  1  understand  you;  I  am  complaisant,  but  I  am 
proud ;  I  am  open  to  sensations,  yet  not  the  slave  of  any ; 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL,  291 

you  have  talent,  I  have  subtlety  of  perception;  we  are 
quits,  and  we  understand  each  other. 

February  1,  1876. — This  evening  we  talked  of  the  infin- 
itely great  and  the  infinitely  small.     The  great  things  of 

the  universe  are  for so  much  easier  to  understand 

than  the  small,  because  all  greatness  is  a  multiple  of  her- 
self, whereas  she  is  incapable  of  analyzing  what  requires  a 
different  sort  of  measurement. 

It  is  possible  for  the  thinking  being  to  place  himself  in 
all  points  of  view,  and  to  teach  his  soul  to  live  under  the 
most  different  modes  of  being.  But  it  must  be  confessed 
that  very  few  profit  by  the  possibility.  Men  are  in  general 
imprisoned,  held  in  a  vice  by  their  circumstances  almost 
as  the  animals  are,  but  they  have  very  little  suspicion  of  it 
because  they  have  so  little  faculty  of  self-judgment.  It  is 
only  the  critic  and  the  philosopher  who  can  penetrate  into 
all  states  of  being,  and  realize  their  life  from  within. 

When  the  imagination  shrinks  in  fear  from  the  phan- 
toms which  it  creates,  it  may  be  excused  because  it  is 
imagination.  But  when  the  intellect  allows  itself  to  be 
tyrannized  over  or  terrified  by  the  categories  to  which 
itself  gives  birth,  it  is  in  the  wrong,  for  it  is  not  allowed 
to  intellect — the  critical  power  of  man — to  be  the  dupe  of 
anything. 

Now,  in  the  superstition  of  size  the  mind  is  merely  the 
dupe  of  itself,  for  it  creates  the  notion  of  space.  The 
created  is  not  more  than  the  creator,  the  son  not  more  than 
the  father.  The  point  of  view  wants  rectifying.  The  mind 
has  to  free  itself  from  space,  which  gives  it  a  false  notion 
of  itself,  but  it  can  only  attain  this  freedom  by  reversing 
tilings  and  by  learning  to  see  space  in  the  mind  instead  of 
the  mind  in  space.  How  can  it  do  this?  Simply  by 
reducing  space  to  its  virtuality.  Space  is  dispersion;  mind 
is  concentration. 

And  that  is  why  God  is  present  everywhere,  without 
taking  up  a  thousand  millions  of  cube  leagues,  nor  a  hun- 
dred times  more  nor  a  hundred  times  less. 

In  the  state  of  thought  the  universe  occupies  but  a  single 


292  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

point;  but  in  the  state  of  dispersion  and  analysis  this 
thought  requires  the  heaven  of  heavens  for  its  expansion. 

In  the  same  way,  time  and  number  are  contained  in  the 
mind.  Man,  as  mind,  is  not  their  inferior,  but  their 
superior. 

It  is  true  that  before  he  can  reach  this  state  of  freedom 
his  own  body  must  appear  to  him  at  will  either  speck  or 
world — that  is  to  say,  he  must  be  independent  of  it.  bo 
long  as  the  self  still  feels  itself  spatial,  dispersed,  corporeal, 
it  is  but  a  soul,  it  is  not  a  mind;  it  is  conscious  of  itself 
only  as  the  animal  is,  the  impressionable,  affectionate, 
active  and  restless  animal. 

The  mind  being  the  subject  of  phenomena  cannot  be 
itself  phenomenal;  the  mirror  of  an  image,  if  it  was  an 
image,  could  not  be  a  mirror.  There  can  be  no  echo  with- 
out a  noise.  Consciousness  means  some  one  who  experi- 
ences something.  And  all  the  somethings  together  cannot 
take  the  place  of  the  some  one.  The  phenomenon  exists 
only  for  a  point  which  is  not  itself,  and  for  which  it  is  an 
object.     The  perceptible  supposes  the  perceiver. 

May  15,  1876. — This  morning  I  corrected  the  proofs  of 
the  "Etrangeres."*  Here  at  least  is  one  thing  off  my 
hands.  The  piece  of  prose  theorizing  which  ends  the  vol- 
ume pleased  and  satisfied  me  a  good  deal  more  than  my 
new  meters.  The  book,  as  a  whole,  may  be  regarded  as  an 
attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  French  verse-translation 
considered  as  a  special  art.  It  is  science  applied  to  poetry. 
It  ought  not,  I  think,  to  do  any  discredit  to  a  philosopher, 
for,  after  all,  it  is  nothing  but  applied  psychology. 

Do  I  feel  any  relief,  any  joy,  pride,  hope?  Hardly.  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  feel  nothing  at  all,  or  at  least  my  feel- 
ing is  so  vague  and  doubtful  that  I  cannot  analyze  it. 
On  the  whole,  I  am  rather  tempted  to  say  to  myself,  how 
much  labor  for  how  small  a  result — Much  ado  about 
nothing!  And  yet  the  work  in  itself  is  good,  is  successful. 
But    what  does  verse-translation    matter?      Already  my 

*  Les  Etrangeres:  Poesies  traduites  de  diverges  litteratures,  par  H 
F.  Amiel,  1876. 


A  MIEUS  JO  URN  A  L.  293 

interest  in  it  is  fading;  my  mind  and  my  energies  clamor 
for  something  else. 

What  will  Edmond  Scherer  say  to  the  volume? 


To  the  inmost  self  of  me  this  literary  attempt  is  quite 
indifferent — a  Lilliputian  affair.  In  comparing  my  work 
with  other  work  of  the  same  kind,  I  find  a  sort  of  relative 
satisfaction;  but  I  see  the  intrinsic  futility  of  it,  and  the 
insignificance  of  its  success  or  failure.  I  do  not  believe 
in  the  public;  I  do  not  believe  in  my  own  work;  I  have 
no  ambition,  properly  speaking,  and  I  blow  soap-bubbles 
for  want  of  something  to  do. 

•*  Car  le  n^ant  peut  seal  bien  cacSaer  rinfini." 

Self -satire,  disillusion,  absence  of  prejudice,  may  be 
freedom,  but  they  are  not  strength. 

July  12,  1876. — Trouble  on  trouble.  My  cough  has 
been  worse  than  ever.  I  cannot  see  that  the  fine  weather 
or  the  holidays  have  made  any  change  for  the  better  in  my 
state  of  health.  On  the  contrary,  the  process  of  demoli- 
tion seems  more  rapid.  It  is  a  painful  experience,  this 
premature  decay !  .  .  .  "  Apres  taut  de  malheurs,  que 
vous  reste-t-il?  Moi."  This  ^'moi"  is  the  central  con- 
sciousness, the  trunk  of  all  the  branches  which  have  been 
cut  away,  that  which  bears  every  successive  mutilation. 
Soon  I  shall  have  nothing  else  left  than  bare  intellect. 
Death  reduces  us  to  the  mathematical  "point  ;"  the 
destruction  which  precedes  it  forces  us  back,  as  it  were,  by 
a  series  of  ever-narrowing  concentric  circles  to  this  last 
inaccessible  refuge.  Already  I  have  a  foretaste  of  tliat 
zero  in  which  all  forms  and  all  modes  are  extinguished. 
I  see  how  we  return  into  the  night,  and  inversely  I  under- 
stand how  we  issue  from  it.  Life  is  but  a  meteor,  of 
which  the  whole  brief  course  is  before  me.  Birth,  life, 
death  assume  a  fresh  meaning  to  us  at  each  phase  of  our 
existence.  To  see  one's  self  as  a  firework  in  the  darkness 
— to  become  a  witness  of  one's  own  fugutive  phenomenon 
—this  is  practical  psychology.     I  prefer  indeed  the  spec- 


1894  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

tacle  of  the  world,  which  is  a  vaster  and  more  splendid 
firework ;  but  when  illness  narrows  my  horizon  and  makes 
me  dwell  perforce  upon  my  own  miseries,  these  miseries 
are  still  capable  of  supplying  food  for  my  psychological 
curiosity.  What  interests  me  in  myself,  in  spite  of  my 
repulsions  is,  that  I  find  in  my  own  case  a  genuine  exam- 
ple of  human  nature,  and  therefore  a  specimen  of  general 
value.  The  sample  enables  me  to  understand  a  multitude 
of  similar  situations,  and  numbers  of  ray  fellow-men. 

To  enter  consciously  into  all  possible  modes  of  being 
would  be  sufficient  occupation  for  hundreds  of  centuries 
— ^at  least  for  our  finite  intelligences,  which  are  conditioned 
by  time.  The  progressive  happiness  of  the  process,  indeed 
may  be  easily  poisoned  and  embittered  by  the  ambition 
which  asks  for  everything  at  once,  and  clamors  to  reach 
the  absolute  at  a  bound.  But  it  may  be  answered  that 
aspirations  are  necessarily  prophetic,  for  they  could  only 
have  come  into  being  under  the  action  of  the  same  cause 
which  will  enable  them  to  reach  their  goal.  The  soul  can 
only  imagine  the  absolute  because  the  absolute  exists;  our 
consciousness  of  a  possible  perfection  is  the  guarantee  that 
perfection  will  be  realized. 

Thought  itself  is  eternal.  It  is  the  consciousness  of 
thought  which  is  gradually  achieved  through  the  long  suc- 
cession of  ages,  races,  and  humanities.  Such  is  the  doctrine 
of  Hegel.  The  history  of  the  mind  is,  according  to  hira 
one  of  approximation  to  the  absolute,  and  the  absolute 
differs  at  the  two  ends  of  the  story.  It  ^vas  at  the  begin 
ning;  it  knows  itself  at  the  end.  Or  rather  it  advances  in 
rhe  possession  of  itself  with  the  gradual  unfolding  of  crea- 
tion.    Such  also  was  the  conception  of  Aristotle. 

If  the  history  of  the  mind  and  of  consciousness  is  the 
very  marrow  and  essence  of  being,  then  to  be  driven  back 
on  psychology,  even  personal  psychology,  is  to  be  still 
occupied  with  the  main  question  of  things,  to  keep  to  the 
subject,  to  feel  one's  self  in  the  center  of  the  universal 
drama.  There  is  comfort  in  the  idea.  Everything  else 
may  be  taken  away  from  us,  but  if  thought  remains  wo 


A  MIEU8  JO  URNAL.  295 

are  still  connected  by  a  magic  thread  with  the  axis  of  the 
world.  But  we  may  lose  thought  and  speech.  Then 
nothing  remains  but  simple  feeling,  the  sense  of  the  pres- 
ence of  God  and  of  death  in  God — the  last  relic  of  the 
human  privilege,  which  is  to  participate  in  the  whole,  to 
commune  with  the  absolute. 

"  Ta  vie  est  un  eclair  qui  meurt  dans  son  nuage, 
Mais  I'eclair  t'a  sauve  s'il  t'a  fait  voir  le  del." 

July  26, 1876. — A  private  journal  is  a  friend  to  idleness. 
It  frees  us  from  the  necessity  of  looking  all  round  a  sub- 
ject, it  puts  up  with  every  kind  of  repetition,  it  accom- 
panies all  the  caprices  and  meanderings  of  the  inner  life, 
and  proposes  to  itself  no  definite  end.  This  journal  of 
mine  represents  the  material  of  a  good  many  volumes: 
what  prodigious  waste  of  time,  of  thought,  of  strength! 
It  will  be  useful  to  nobody,  and  even  for  myself — it  has 
rather  helped  me  to  shirk  life  than  to  practice  it.  A 
journal  takes  the  place  of  a  confidant,  that  is,  of  friend  or 
wife;  it  becomes  a  substitute  for  production,  a  substitute 
for  country  and  public.  It  is  a  grief-cheating  device,  a 
mode  of  escape  and  withdrawal;  but,  factotum  as  it  is, 
though  it  takes  the  place  of  everything,  properly  speaking 
it  represents  nothing  at  all.     .     . 

What  is  it  which  makes  the  history  of  a  soul?  It  is  the 
stratification  of  its  different  stages  of  progress,  the  story 
of  its  acquisitions  and  of  the  general  course  of  its  destiny. 
Before  my  history  can  teach  anybody  anything,  or  even 
interest  myself,  it  must  be  disentangled  from  its  materials, 
distilled  and  simplified.  These  thousands  of  pages  are  but 
the  pile  of  leaves  and  bark  from  which  the  essence  has  still 
to  be  extracted.  A  whole  forest  of  cinchonas  are  worth 
but  one  cask  of  quinine.  A  whole  Smyrna  rose-garden 
goes  to  produce  one  vial  of  perfume. 

This  mass  of  written  talk,  the  work  of  twenty-nine  years, 
may  in  the  end  be  worth  nothing  at  all;  for  each  is  only 
interested  in  his  own  romance,  his  own  individual  life. 
Even  I  perhaps  shall  never  have  time  to  read   them  over 


296  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

myself.  So — so  what?  I  shall  have  lived  my  life,  and 
life  consists  in  repeating  the  human  type,  and  the  burden 
of  the  human  song,  as  myriads  of  my  kindred  have  done, 
are  doing,  and  will  do,  century  after  century.  To  rise  to 
consciousness  of  this  burden  and  this  type  is  something, 
and  we  can  scarcely  achieve  anything  further.  The  reali- 
zation of  the  type  is  more  complete,  and  the  burden  a 
more  joyous  one,  if  circumstances  are  kind  and  propitious, 
but  whether  the  puppets  have  done  this  or  that — 

"  Trois  p'tits  tours  et  puis  s'en  vonti " 

everything  falls  into  the  same  gulf  at  last,  and  comes  to 
very  much  the  same  thing. 

To  rebel  against  fate — to  try  to  escape  the  inevitable 
issue — is  almost  puerile.  When  the  duration  of  a  cen- 
tenarian and  that  of  an  insect  are  quantities  sensibly 
equivalent — and  geology  and  astronomy  enable  us  to  regard 
such  durations  from  this  point  of  view — what  is  the  mean- 
ing of  all  our  tiny  efforts  and  cries,  the  value  of  our  anger, 
our  ambition,  our  hope?  For  the  dream  of  a  dream  it  is 
absurd  to  raise  these  make-believe  tempests.  The  forty 
millions  of  infusoria  which  make  up  a  cube-inch  of  chalk 
— do  they  matter  much  to  us?  and  do  the  forty  millions  of 
men  who  make  up  France  matter  any  more  to  an  inhabi- 
tant of  the  moon  or  Jupiter? 

To  be  a  conscious  monad — a  nothing  which  knows  itself 
to  be  the  miscroscopic  phantom  of  the  universe :  this  is  all 
we  can  ever  attain  to. 

September  12,  1876. — What  is  your  own  particular  ab- 
surdity? Why,  simply  that  you  exhaust  yourself  in  trying 
to  understand  wisdom  without  practicing  it,  that  you  are 
always  making  preparations  for  nothing,  that  you  live 
without  living.  Contemplation  which  has  not  the  courage 
to  be  purely  contemplative,  renunciation  which  does  not 
renounce  completely,  chronic  contradiction — there  is  your 
case.  Inconsistent  skepticism,  irresolution,  not  convinced 
but  incorrigible,  weakness  which  will  not  accept  itself  and 
cannot  transform  itself  into  strength — there  is  your  misery. 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  297 

The  comic  side  of  it  lies  in  capacity  to  direct  others, 
becoming  incapacity  to  direct  one's  self,  in  the  dream  of 
the  infinitely  great  stopped  short  by  the  infinitely  little, 
in  what  seems  to  be  the  utter  f.selessness  of  talent.  To 
arrive  at  immobility  by  excess  of  motion,  at  zero  from 
abundance  of  numbers,  is  a  strange  farce,  a  sad  comedy; 
the  poorest  gossip  can  laugh  at  its  absurdity. 

September  19,  1876. — My  reading  to-day  has  been 
Doudan's  "Lettres  et  Melanges."*  A  fascinating  book! 
Wit,  grace,  subtlety,  imagination,  thought — these  letters 
possess  them  all.  How  much  I  regret  that  I  never  knew 
the  man  himself.  He  was  a  Frenchman  of  the  best  type, 
un  delicat  ne  sublime,  to  quote  Sainte-Bevue's  expression. 
Fastidiousness  of  temper,  and  a  too  keen  love  of  perfec- 
tion, led  him  to  withhold  his  talent  from  the  public,  but 
while  still  living,  and  within  his  own  circle,  he  was  the 
recognized  equal  of  the  best.  He  scarcely  lacked  any- 
thing except  that  fraction  of  ambition,  of  brutality  and 
material  force  which  are  necessary  to  success  in  this  world; 
but  he  was  appreciated  by  the  best  society  of  Paris,  and 
he  cared  for  nothing  else.     He  reminds  me  of  Joubert. 

September  20th. — To  be  witty  is  to  satisfy  another's 
wits  by  the  bestowal  on  him  of  two  pleasures,  that  of 
understanding  one  thing  and  that  of  guessing  another, 
and  so  achieving  a  double  stroke. 

Thus  Doudan  scarcely  ever  speaks  out  his  thought 
directly;  he  disguises  and  suggests  it  by  imagery,  allusion, 
hyperbole;  he  overlays  it  with  light  irony  and  feigned 
anger,  with  gentle  mischief  and  assumed  humility.  The 
more  the  thing  to  be  guessed  differs  from  the  thing  said, 
the  more  pleasant  surprise  there  is  for  the  interlocutor  or 
the  correspondent  concerned.     These  charming  and  deli- 

*  Ximenes  Doudan,  born  in  1800,  died  1872,  the  brilliant  friend 
and  tutor  of  the  De  Broglie  family,  whose  conversation  was  so  much 
sought  after  in  life,  and  whose  letters  have  been  so  eagerly  read  in 
France  since  his  death.  Compare  M.  Scherer's  two  articles  on 
Doudan's  "  Lettres  "  and  "  Pensees"  in  his  last  published  volume  of 
assays. 


298  AMIKL'8  JOURNAL. 

cate  ways  of  expression  allow  a  man  to  teach  what  he  will 
without  pedantry,  and  to  venture  what  he  will  without 
offense.  There  is  something  Attic  and  aerial  in  them; 
they  mingle  grave  and  gay,  fiction  and  truth,  with  a  light 
grace  of  touch  such  as  neither  La  Fontaine  nor  Alcibiades 
would  have  been  ashamed  of.  Socratic  badinage  like  this 
presupposes  a  free  and  equal  mind,  victorious  over  physical 
ill  and  inward  discontents.  Such  delicate  playfulness  is 
the  exclusive  herita5-  of  those  rare  natures  iii  whom  sub- 
dety  is  the  disguise  of  superiority,  and  taste  its  revelation. 
What  balance  of  faculties  and  cultivation  it  requires! 
What  personal  distinction  it  shows:  I'^rhaps  only  a 
valetudinarian  would  have  been  capable  of  this  morbidezza 
of  touch,  this  marriage  of  virile  thought  and  feminine 
caprice.  If  there  is  excess  anywhere,  it  lies  perhaps  in  a 
certain  effeminacy  of  sentiment.  Doudan  can  put  up 
with  nothing  but  what  is  perfect — nothing  but  what  is 
absolutely  harmonious;  all  that  is  rough,  hai-sh,  powerful, 
brutal,  and  unexpected,  throws  him  into  convulsions. 
Audacity — boldness  of  all  kinds — repels  him.  This 
Athenian  of  the  Roman  time  is  a  true  disciple  of  Epicurus 
in  all  matters  of  sight,  hearing,  and  intelligence — a  crum- 
pled rose-leaf  disturbs  him. 

"  Une  ombre,  un  souffle,  un  rien,  tout  lui  donnait  la  fievre." 

What  all  this  softness  wants  is  strength,  creative  and 
muscular  force.  His  range  is  not  as  wide  as  I  thought  it 
at  first.  The  classical  world  and  the  Renaissance — that 
is  to  say,  the  horizon  of  La  Fontaine — is  his  horizon.  He 
is  out  of  his  element  in  the  German  or  Slav  literatures. 
He  knows  nothing  of  Asia.  Humanity  for  him  is  not 
much  larger  than  France,  and  he  has  never  made  a  bible 
of  Nature.  In  music  and  painting  he  is  more  or  less  ex- 
clusive. In  philosophy  he  stops  at  Kant.  To  sum  up: 
he  is  a  man  of  exquisite  and  ingenious  taste,  but  he  is  not 
a  first-rate  critic,  still  less  a  poet,  philosopher,  or  artist. 
He  was  an  admirable  talker,  a  delightful  letter  writer, 
who  might  have  bftc^me  an  author  had  he  chosen  to  con- 


A  MIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  299 

centrate  himself.  I  must  wait  for  the  second  volume  in 
order  to  review  and  correct  this  preliminary  impre&sion. 

Midday. — I  have  now  gone  once  more  through  the 
whole  volume,  lingering  over  the  Attic  charm  of  it,  and 
meditating  on  the  originality  and  distinction  of  the  man's 
organization.  Doudan  was  a  keen  penetrating  psycholo- 
gist, a  diviner  of  aptitudes,  a  trainer  of  minds,  a  man  of 
infinite  taste  and  talent,  capable  of  every  nuance  and  of 
'  every  delicacy ;  but  his  defect  was  a  want  of  persevering 
^energy  of  thought,  a  lack  of  patience  in  execution. 
Timidity,  unworldliness,  indolence,  indifference,  confined 
him  to  the  role  of  the  literary  counsellor  and  made  him 
judge  of  the  field  in  which  he  ought  rather  to  have  fought. 
But  do  I  mean  to  blame  him? — no  indeed!  In  the  first 
place,  it  would  be  to  fire  on  my  allies;  in  the  second,  very 
likely  he  chose  the  better  part. 

Was  it  not  Goethe  who  remarked  that  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  all  famous  men  we  find  men  who  never  achieve 
fame,  and  yet  were  esteemed  by  those  who  did,  as  their 
equals  or  superiors?  Descartes,  I  think,  said  the  same 
thing.  Fame  will  not  run  after  the  men  who  are  afraid 
,)f  her.  She  makes  mock  of  those  trembling  and  respect- 
ful lovers  who  deserve  but  cannot  force  her  favors.  The 
public  is  won  by  the  bold,  imperious  talents — by  the  enter- 
prising and  the  skillful.  It  does  not  believe  in  modesty, 
which  it  regards  as  a  device  of  impotence.  The  golden 
book  contains  but  a  section  of  the  true  geniuses;  it  names 
those  only  who  have  taken  glory  by  storm. 

]N"ovember  15,  1876. — I  have  been  reading  "L'Avenir 
Eeligieux  des  Peuples  Civilises,"  by  Emile  de  Laveleye. 
The  theory  of  this  writer  is  that  the  gospel,  in  its  pure 
form,  is  capable  of  providing  the  religion  of  the  future, 
and  that  the  abolition  of  all  religious  principle,  which  is 
what  the  socialism  of  the  present  moment  demands,  is  as. 
much  to  be  feared  as  Catholic  superstition.  The  Protestant 
method,  according  to  him,  is  the  means  of  transition 
whereby  sacerdotal  Christianity  passes  into  the  pure  religion 
of  the  gospel.     Laveleye  does  not  think  that  civilization 


BOO  AMI  EL' 8  JOURNAL. 

can  last  without  the  belief  in  God  and  in  another  life. 
Perhaps  he  forgets  that  Japan  and  China  prove  the  con- 
trary. But  it  is  enough  to  determine  him  against  atheism 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  a  general  atheism  would  bring 
about  a  lowering  of  the  moral  average.  After  all,  how- 
ever, this  is  nothing  but  a  religion  of  utilitarianism.  A 
belief  is  not  true  because  it  is  useful.  And  it  is  truth 
alone — scientific,  established,  proved,  and  rational  truth — 
which  is  capable  of  satisfying  nowadays  the  awakened 
minds  of  all  classes.  We  may  still  say  perhaps,  "faith 
governs  the  world  " — but  the  faith  of  the  present  is  no 
longer  in  revelation  or  in  the  priest — it  is  in  reason  and  in 
science.  Is  there  a  science  of  goodness  and  happiness? — 
that  is  the  question.  Do  justice  and  goodness  depend 
upon  any  particular  religion?  How  are  men  to  be  made 
free,  honest,  just,  and  good? — there  is  the  point. 

On  my  way  through  the  book  I  perceived  many  new 
applications  of  my  law  of  irony.  Every  epoch  has  two  con- 
tradictory aspirations  which  are  logically  antagonistic  and 
practically  associated.  Thus  the  philosophic  materialism 
of  the  last  century  was  the  champion  of  liberty.  And  at 
the  present  moment  we  find  Darwinians  in  love  with 
equality,  while  Darwinism  itself  is  based  on  the  right  of 
the  stronger.  Absurdity  is  interwoven  with  life:  real 
beings  are  animated  contradictions,  absurdities  brought 
into  action.  Harmony  with  self  would-  mean  peace, 
repose,  and  perhaps  immobility  By  far  the  greater  num- 
ber of  human  beings  can  only  conceive  action,*  or  practice 
it,  under  the  form  of  war — a  war  of  competition  at  home, 
a  bloody  war  of  nations  abroad,  and  finally  war  with  self. 
So  that  life  is  a  perpetual  combat;  it  wills  that  which  it 
wills  not,  and  wills  not  that  it  wills.  Hence  what  I  call 
the  law  of  irony — that  is  to  say,  the  refutation  of  the  self 
by  itself,  the  concrete  realization  of  the  absurd. 

Is  such  a  result  inevitable?  I  think  not.  Struggle  is 
the  caricature  of  harmony,  and  harmony,  which  is  the 
association,  of  contraries,  is  also  a  principle  of  movement. 
War  is  a  brutal  and  fierce  means  of  pacification;  it  means 


A  MIEL  S  JO  URNAL.  301 

the  suppression  of  resistance  by  the  destruction  or  enslave- 
ment of  the  conquered.  Mutual  respect  would  bo  a  better 
way  out  of  difficulties.  Conflict  is  the  result  of  the  selfish- 
ness which  will  acknowledge  no  other  limit  than  that  of 
external  force.  The  laws  of  animality  govern  almost  the 
whole  of  history.  The  history  of  man  is  essentially 
zoological;  it  becomes  human  late  in  the  day,  and  then 
only  in  the  beautiful  souls,  the  souls  alive  to  justice,  good- 
ness, enthusiasm,  and  devotion.  The  angel  shows  itself 
rarely  and  with  difficulty  through  the  highly-organized 
brute.  The  divine  aureole  plays  only  with  a  dim  and 
fugitive  light  around  the  brows  of  the  world's  governing 
race. 

The  Christian  nations  offer  many  illustrations  of  the  law 
of  irony.  They  profess  the  citizenship  of  heaven,  the 
exclusive  worship  of  eternal  good;  and  never  has  the 
hungry  pursuit  of  perishable  joys,  the  love  of  this  world, 
or  the  thirst  for  conquest,  been  stronger  or  more  active 
than  among  these  nations.  Their  official  motto  is  exactly 
the  reverse  of  their  real  aspiration.  Under  a  false  flag 
they  play  the  smuggler  with  a  droll  ease  of  conscience. 
Is  the  fraud  a  conscious  one?  No — it  is  but  an  application 
of  the  law  of  irony.  The  deception  is  so  common  a  one 
that  the  delinquent  becomes  unconscious  of  it.  Every 
nation  gives  itself  the  lie  in  the  course  of  its  daily  life, 
and  not  one  feels  the  ridicule  of  its  position.  A  man  must 
be  a  Japanese  to  perceive  the  burlesque  contradictions  of 
the  Christian  civilization.  He  must  be  a  native  of  the 
moon  to  understand  the  stupidity  of  man  and  his  state  of 
constant  delusion.  The  philosopher  himself  falls  under 
the  law  of  irony,  for  after  having  mentally  stripped  him- 
self of  all  prejudice — having,  that  is  to  say,  wholly  laid 
aside  his  own  personality,  he  finds  himself  slipping  back 
perforce  into  the  rags  he  had  taken  off,  obliged  to  eat  and 
drink,  to  be  hungry,  cold,  thirsty,  and  to  behave  like  all 
other  mortals,  after  having  for  a  moment  behaved  like  no 
other.  This  is  the  point  where  the  comic  poets  are  lying 
in  wait  for  him ;  the  animal  needs  revenge  themselves  for 


303  A  MIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

his  flight  into  the  Empyrean,  and  mock  him  by  their  cry: 
Thou  art  dust,  thou  art  nothitig,  thou  art  man! 

November  26,  1876. — I  have  just  finished  a  novel  of 
Cherbuliez,  "Le  fiance  de  Mademoiselle  de  St.  Maur."  It 
is  a  jeweled  mosaic  of  precious  stones,  sparkling  with  a 
thousand  lights.  But  the  heart  gets  little  from  it.  The 
Mephistophelian  type  of  novel  leaves  one  sad.  This  subtle, 
refined  world  is  strangely  near  to  corruption;  these  artificial 
women  have  an  air  of  the  Lower  Empire.  There  is  not  a 
character  who  is  not  witty,  and  neither  is  there  one  who 
has  not  bartered  conscience  for  cleverness.  The  elegance 
of  the  whole  is  but  a  mask  of  immorality.  These  stories 
of  feeling  in  which  there  is  no  feeling  make  a  strange  and 
painful  impression  upon  me. 

December  4,  1876. — I  have  been  thinking  a  great  deal  of 
Victor  Cherbuliez.  Perhaps  his  novels  make  up  the 
most  disputable  part  of  his  work — they  are  so  much  wanting 
in  simplicity,  feeling,  reality.  And  yet  what  knowledge, 
style,  wit,  and  subtlety — how  much  thought  everywhere, 
and  what  mastery  of  language!  He  astonishes  one;  ] 
cannot  but  admire  him. 

Cherbuliez 's  mind  is  of  immense  range,  clear-sighted, 
keen,  full  of  resource;  he  is  an  Alexandrian  exquisite, 
substituting  for  the  feeling  which  makes  me<^  earnest  the 
irony  which  leaves  them  free.  Pascal  would  say  of  him — 
"  He  has  never  risen  from  the  order  of  thought  to  the  order 
of  charity."  But  we  must  not  be  ungrateful.  A  Lucian 
is  not  worth  an  Augustine,  but  still  he  is  Lucian.  Those 
who  enfranchise  the  mind  render  service  to  man  as  well  as 
those  who  persuade  the  heart.  After  the  leaders  come  the 
liberators,  and  the  negative  and  critical  minds  have  their 
'  place  and  function  beside  the  men  of  affirmation,  the  con- 
vinced and  inspired  souls.  The  positive  element  in  Victor 
Cherbuliez's  work  is  beauty,  not  goodness,  not  moral  or 
religious  life,  ^sthetically  he  is  serious ;  what  he  respects 
is  style.  And  therefore  he  has  found  his  vocation;  for  he 
is  first  and  foremost  a  writer — a  consummate,  exquisite, 
and  model  writer.  He  does  not  win  our  love,  but  he 
claims  our  homage. 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  303 

In  every  union  there  is  a  mystery — a  certain  invisible 
bond  which  must  not  be  disturbed.  This  vital  bond  in  the 
filial  relation  is  respect;  in  friendship,  esteem ;  in  marriage, 
confidence;  in  the  collective  life,  patriotism;  in  the  reli- 
gious life,  faith.  Such  points  are  best  left  untouched  by 
speech,  for  to  touch  them  is  almost  to  profane  them. 


Men  of  genius  supply  the  substance  of  history,  while  the 
mass  of  men  are  but  the  critical  filter,  the  limiting,  slack- 
ening, passive  force  needed  for  the  modification  of  the 
ideas  supplied  by  genius.  Stupidity  is  dynamically  the 
necessary  balance  of  intellect.  To  make  an  atmosphere 
which  human  life  can  breathe,  oxygen  must  be  combined 
with  a  great  deal — with  three-fourths — of  azote.  And  so, 
to  make  history,  there  must  be  a  great  deal  of  resistance  to 
conquer  and  of  weight  to  drag. 

January  5,  1877. — This  morning  I  am  altogether  miser- 
able, half-stifled  by  bronchitis — walking  a  difficulty — the 
brain  weak — this  last  the  worst  misery  of  all,  for  thought 
is  my  only  weapon  against  my  other  ills.  Kapid  deteriora- 
tion of  all  the  bodily  powers,  a  dull  continuous  waste  of 
vital  organs,  brain  decay:  this  is  the  trial  laid  upon  me,  a 
trial  that  no  one  suspects !  Men  pity  you  for  growing  old 
outwardly;  but  what  does  that  matter? — nothing,  so  long 
as  the  faculties  are  intact.  This  boon  of  mental  sound- 
ness to  the  last  has  been  granted  to  so  many  students  that 
I  hoped  for  it  a  little.  Alas,  must  I  sacrifice  that  too? 
Sacrifice  is  almost  easy  when  we  believe  it  laid  upon  us, 
asked  of  us,  rather,  by  a  fatherly  God  and  a  watchful 
Providence;  but  I  know  nothing  of  this  religious  joy. 
The  mutilation  of  the  self  which  is  going  on  in  me  lowers 
and  lessens  me  without  doing  good  to  anybody.  Supposing 
I  became  blind,  who  would  be  the  gainer?  Only  one 
motive  remains  to  me — that  of  manly  resignation  to  the 
inevitable — the  wish  to  set  an  example  to  others — the  stoic 
view  of  morals  pure  and  simple. 

This  moral  education  of  the  individual  soul — is  it  then 
wasted?     When  our  planet  has  accomplished  the  cycle  of 


304  AMIEV8  JOURNAL, 

its  destinies,  of  what  use  will  it  have  been  to  any  one  or 
anything  in  the  universe?  Well,  it  will  have  sounded  its 
note  in  the  symphony  of  creation.  And  for  us,  individual 
atoms,  seeing  monads,  we  appropriate  a  momentary  con- 
sciousness of  the  whole  and  the  unchangeable,  and  then  we 
disappear.  Is  not  this  enough?  No,  it  is  not  enough, 
for  if  there  is  not  progress,  increase,  profit,  there  is  nothing 
but  a  mere  chemical  play  and  balance  of  combinations. 
Brahma,  after  having  created,  draws  his  creation  back  into 
the  gulf.  If  we  are  a  laboratory  of  the  universal  mind, 
may  that  mind  at  least  profit  and  grow  by  us !  If  we 
realize  the  supreme  will,  may  God  have  the  joy  of  it!  If 
the  trustful  humility  of  the  soul  rejoices  him  more  than 
the  greatness  of  intellect,  let  us  enter  into  his  plan,  his  in- 
tention. This,  in  theological  language,  is  to  live  to  the 
glory  of  God.  Keligion  consists  in  the  filial  acceptation 
of  the  divine  will  whatever  it  be,  provided  we  see  it  dis- 
tinctly. Well,  can  we  doubt  that  decay,  sickness,  death, 
are  in  the  programme  of  our  existence?  Is  not  destiny  the 
inevitable?  And  is  not  destiny  the  anonymous  title  of 
him  or  of  that  which  the  religions  call  God?  To  descend 
without  murmuring  the  stream  of  destiny,  to  pass  without 
revolt  through  loss  after  loss,  and  diminution  after  diminu- 
tion, with  no  other  limit  than  zero  before  us — this  is  what 
is  demanded  of  us.  Involution  is  as  natural  as  evolution. 
We  sink  gradually  back  into  the  darkness,  just  as  we  issued 
gradually  from  it.  The  play  of  faculties  and  organs,  the 
grandiose  apparatus  of  life,  is  put  back  bit  by  bit  into  the 
box.  We  begin  by  instinct;  at  the  end  comes  a  clearness 
of  vision  which  we  must  learn  to  bear  with  and  to  employ 
without  murmuring  upon  our  own  failure  and  decay.  A 
musical  theme  once  exhausted,  finds  its  due  refuge  and 
repose  in  silence. 

February  6,  1877. — I  spent  the  evening  with  the , 

and  we  talked  of  the  anarchy  of  ideas,  of  the  general  want 
of  culture,  of  what  it  is  which  keeps  the  world  going,  and 
of  the  assured  march  of  science  in  the  midst  of  universal 
passion  and  superstition. 


AMIEU 8  JOURNAL.  305 

What  is  rarest  in  the  world  is  fair-mindedness,  method, 
the  critical  view,  the  sense  of  proportion,  the  capacity  for 
distinguishing.  The  common  state  of  human  thought  is 
one  of  confusion,  incoherence,  and  presumption,  and  the 
common  state  of  human  hearts  is  a  state  of  passion,  in 
which  equity,  impartiality,  and  openness  to  impressions 
are  unattainable.  Men's  wills  are  always  in  advance  of 
their  intelligence,  their  desires  ahead  of  their  will,  and 
accident  the  source  of  their  desires;  so  that  they  express 
merely  fortuitous  opinions  which  are  not  worth  the  trouble 
of  taking  seriously,  and  which  have  no  other  account  to 
give  of  themselves  than  this  childish  one :  I  am,  because  I 
am.  The  art  of  finding  truth  is  very  little  practiced ;  it 
scarcely  exists,  because  there  is  no  personal  humility,  nor 
even  any  love  of  truth  among  us.  We  are  covetous 
enough  of  such  knowledge  as  may  furnish  weapons  to  our 
hand  or  tongue,  as  may  serve  our  vanity  or  gratify  our 
craving  for  power;  but  self-knowledge,  the  criticism  of  our 
own  appetites  and  prejudices,  is  unwelcome  and  disagree- 
able to  us. 

Man  is  a  willful  and  covetous  animal,  who  makes  use  of 
his  intellect  to  satisfy  his  inclinations,  but  who  cares 
nothing  for  truth,  who  rebels  against  personal  disci- 
pline, who  hates  disinterested  thought  and  the  idea  of 
self-education.  Wisdom  offends  him,  because  it  rouses  in 
him  disturbance  and  confusion,  and  because  he  will  not  see 
himself  as  he  is. 

The  great  majority  of  men  are  but  tangled  skeins,  im- 
perfect keyboards,  so  many  specimens  of  restless  or  stag- 
nant chaos — and  what  makes  their  situation  almost  hope- 
less is  the  fact  that  they  take  pleasure  in  it.  There  is  no 
curing  a  sick  man  who  believes  himself  in  health. 

April  5,  1877. — I  have  been  thinking  over  the  pleasant 
evening  of  yesterday,  an  experience  in  which  the  sweets  of 
friendship,  the  charm  of  mutual  understanding,  aesthetic 
pleasure,  and  a  general  sense  of  comfort,  were  happily 
combined  and  intermingled.  There  was  not  a  crease  in  the 
rose-leaf.     Why?    Because  "all  that  is  pure,  all  that  is 


306  AMI KL' 8  JOURNAL, 

honest,  all  that  is  excellent,  all  that  is  lovely  and  of  good 
report,"  was  there  gathered  together.  "The  incorrup- 
tibility of  a  gentle  and  quiet  spirit,"  innocent  mirth,  faith- 
fulness ':o  duty,  fine  taste  and  sympathetic  imagination, 
form  an  attractive  and  wholesome  milieu  in  which  the  soul 
may  rest. 

The  party — which  celebrated  the  last  day  of  vacation — 
gave  much  pleasure,  and  not  to  me  only.  Is  not  making 
others  happy  the  best  happiness?  To  illuminate  for  an 
instant  the  depths  of  a  deep  soul,  to  cheer  those  who  bear 
by  sympathy  the  burdens  of  so  many  sorrow-laden  hearts 
and  suffering  lives,  is  to  me  a  blessing  and  a  precious  privi- 
lege. There  is  a  sort  of  religious  joy  in  helping  to  renew 
the  strength  and  courage  of  noble  minds.  We  are  sur- 
prised to  find  ourselves  the  possessors  of  a  power  of  Avhich 
we  are  not  worthy,  and  we  long  to  exercise  it  purely  and 
seriously. 

I  feel  most  strongly  that  man,  in  all  that  he  does  or  can 
do  which  is  beautiful,  great,  or  good  is  but  the  organ 
and  the  vehicle  of  something  or  some  one  higher  than 
himself.  This  feeling  is  religion.  The  religious  man 
takes  part  with  a  tremor  of  sacred  joy  in  these  phenomena 
of  which  he  is  the  intermediary  out  not  the  source,  of 
which  he  is  the  scene,  but  noc  ^le  author,  or  rather,  the 
poet.  He  lends  them  voice,  and  will,  and  help,  but  he  is 
respectfully  careful  to  efface  himself,  that  he  may  alter  as 
little  as  possible  tne  iigher  work  of  the  genius  who  is 
making  a  momentary  use  of  him.  A  pure  emotion  deprives 
hiva.  ot  persionaiity  and  annihilates  the  self  in  him.  Self 
must  perforce  disappear  when  it  is  the  Holy  Spirit  who 
ipeaks,  when  it  is  God  who  acts.  This  is  the  mood  in' 
«^hich  the  prophet  hears  the  call,  the  young  mother  feels 
the  movement  of  the  child  within,  the  preacher  watches 
the  tears  of  his  audience.  So  long  as  we  are  conscious  of 
self  we  are  limited,  selfish,  held  in  bondage;  when  we  are 
in  harmony  with  the  universal  order,  when  we  vibrate  in 
unison  with  God,  self  disappears.  Thus,  in  a  perfectly 
harmonious  choir,   the    individual    cannot  hear  himself 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  307 

anless  he  makes  a  false  note.  The  religious  state  is  one  of 
deep  enthusiasm,  of  moved  contemplation,  of  tranquil 
ecstasy.  But  how  rare  a  state  it  is  for  us  poor  creatures 
harassed  by  duty,  by  necessity,  by  the  wicked  world,  by 
sin,  by  illness!  It  is  the  state  which  produces  inward 
happiness;  but  alas!  the  foundation  of  existence,  the  com- 
mon texture  of  our  days,  is  made  up  of  action,  effort 
struggle,  and  therefore  dissonance.  Perpetual  conflict, 
interrupted  by  short  and  threatened  truces — there  is  a  true 
picture  of  our  human  condition. 

Let  us  hail,  then,  as  an  echo  from  heaven,  as  the  fore- 
taste of  a  more  blesse^  economy,  these  brief  moments  of 
perfect  harmony,  these  halts  between  two  storms.  Peace 
is  not  in  itself  a  dream,  but  we  know  it  only  as  the  result 
of  a  momentary  equilibrium — an  accident.  "Happy  are 
the  peacemakers,  for  they  shall  be  called  the  children  of 
God." 

April  26,  1877. — I  have  been  turning  over  again  the 
"Paris"  of  Victor  Hugo  (1867).  For  ten  years  event  after 
event  has  given  the  lie  to  the  prophet,  but  the  confidence 
of  the  prophet  in  his  own  imaginings  is  not  therefore  a  whit 
diminished.  Humility  and  common  sense  are  only  fit  for 
Lilliputians.  Victor  Hugo  superbly  ignores  everything 
that  he  has  not  foreseen.  He  does  not  see  that  pride  is  a 
limitation  of  the  mind,  and  that  a  pride  without  limita- 
tions is  a  littleness  of  soul.  If  he  could  but  learn  to  com- 
pare himself  with  other  men,  and  France  with  other  nations, 
he  would  see  things  more  truly,  and  would  not  fall  into 
these  mad  exaggerations,  these  extravagant  judgments. 
But  proportion  and  fairness  will  never  be  among  the 
strings  at  his  command.  He  is  vowed  to  the  Titanic;  his 
gold  is  always  mixed  with  lead,  his  insight  with  childish- 
ness, his  reason  with  madness.  He  cannot  be  simple;  the 
only  light  he  has  to  give  blinds  you  like  that  of  a  fire.  He 
astonishes  a  reader  and  provokes  him,  he  moves  him  and 
annoys  him.  There  is  always  some  falsity  of  note  in  him, 
which  accounts  for  the  malaise  he  so  constantly  excites  in 
me.     The  great  poet  in  him  cannot  shake  off  the  charlatan. 


308  AMJfCL'8  JOURNAL. 

A  few  shafts  of  Voltairean  irony  would  have  shriveled  the 
inflation  of  his  genius  and  made  it  stronger  by  making  it 
saner.  It  is  a  public  misfortune  that  the  most  powerful 
poet  of  a  nation  should  not  have  better  understood  his  r61e, 
and  that,  unlike  those  Hebrew  prophets  who  scourged 
because  they  loved,  he  should  devote  himself  proudly  and 
systematically  to  the  flattery  of  his  countrymen.  France 
is  the  world;  Paris  is  France;  Hugo  is  Paris;  peoples, 
bow  down ! 

May  2,  1877. — Which  nation  is  best  worth  belonging  to? 
There  is  not  one  in  which  the  good  is  not  counterbalanced 
by  evil.  Each  is  a  caricature  of  man,  a  proof  that  no  one 
among  them  deserves  to  crush  the  others,  and  that  all 
have  something  to  learn  from  all.  I  am  alternately  struck 
with  the  qualities  and  with  the  defects  of  each,  which  Is 
perhaps  lucky  for  a  critic.  I  am  conscious  of  no  prefer- 
ence for  the  defects  of  north  or  south,  of  west  or  east;  and 
I  should  find  a  difficulty  in  stating  my  own  predilections. 
Indeed  I  myself  am  wholly  indifferent  in  the  matter,  for 
to  me  the  question  is  not  one  of  liking  or  of  blaming,  but 
of  understanding.  My  point  of  view  is  philosophical — that 
is  to  say,  impartial  and  impersonal.  The  only  type  which 
pleases  me  is  perfection — man,  in  short,  the  ideal  man. 
As  for  the  national  man,  I  bear  with  and  study  him,  but  I 
have  no  admiration  for  him.  I  can  only  admire  the  fine 
specimens  of  the  race,  the  great  men,  the  geniuses,  the 
lofty  characters  and  noble  souls,  and  specimens  of  these 
are  to  be  found  in  all  the  ethnographical  divisions.  The 
"  country  of  my  choice "  (to  quote  Madame  de  Stael)  is 
with  the  chosen  souls.  I  feel  no  greater  inclination 
toward  the  French,  the  Germans,  the  Swiss,  the  English, 
the  Poles,  the  Italians,  than  toward  the  Brazilians  or  the 
Chinese.  The  illusions  of  patriotism,  of  Chauvinist, 
family,  or  professional  feeling,  do  not  exist  for  me  My 
tendency,  on  the  contrary,  is  to  feel  with  increased  force 
the  lacunae,  deformities,  and  imperfections  of  the  group  to 
which  I  belong.  My  inclination  is  to  see  things  as  they 
are,  abstracting  mv  own  individuality,  and  suppressing  all 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  309 

personal  will  and  desire;  so  that  I  feel  antipathy,  not 
toward  this  or  that,  but  toward  error,  prejudice,  stupidity, 
exclusiveness,  exaggeration.  I  love  only  justice  and  fair- 
ness. Anger  and  annoyance  are  with  me  merely  superficial ; 
the  fundamental  tendency  is  toward  impartial ty  and  detach- 
ment. Inward  liberty  and  aspiration  toward  the  true — 
these  are  what  I  care  for  and  take  pleasure  in. 

June  4,  1877. — I  have  just  heard  the  "Romeo  and 
Juliet "  of  Hector  Berlioz.  The  work  is  entitled  "  Dramatic 
symphony  for  orchestra,  with  choruses."  The  execution 
was  extremely  good.  The  work  is  interesting,  careful, 
curious,  and  suggestive,  but  it  leaves  one  cold.  When  I 
come  to  reason  out  my  impression  I  explain  it  in  this  way. 
To  subordinate  man  to  things — to  annex  the  human  voice, 
as  a  mere  supplement,  to  the  orchestra — is  false  in  idea. 
To  make  simple  narrative  out  of  dramatic  material,  is  a 
derogation,  a  piece  of  levity.  A  Eomeo  and  Juliet  in 
which  there  is  no  Romeo  and  no  Juliet  is  an  absurdity. 
To  substitute  the  inferior,  the  obscure,  the  vague,  for  the 
higher  and  the  clear,  is  a  challenge  to  common  sense.  It 
is  a  violation  of  that  natural  hierarchy  of  things  which  is 
never  violated  with  impunity.  The  musician  has  put 
together  a  series  of  symphonic  pictures,  without  any  inner 
connection,  a  string  of  riddles,  to  which  a  prose  text  alone 
supplies  meaning  and  unity.  The  only  intelligible  voice 
which  is  allowed  to  appear  in  the  work  is  that  of  Friar 
Laurence:  his  sermon  could  not  be  expressed  in  chords, 
and  is  therefore  plainly  sung.  But  the  moral  of  a  play  is 
not  the  play,  and  the  play  itself  has  been  elbowed  out  by 
recitative. 

The  musician  of  the  present  day,  not  being  able  to  give 
us  what  is  beautiful,  torments  himself  to  give  us  what  is 
new.  False  originality,  false  grandeur,  false  genius !  This 
labored  art  is  wholly  antipathetic  to  me.  Science  simulat- 
ing genius  is  but  a  form  of  quackery. 

Berlioz  as  a  critic  is  cleverness  itself;  as  a  musician  he 
is  learned,  inventive,  and  ingenious,  but  he  is  trying  to 
achieve  the  greater  when  he  cannot  compass  the  lesser. 


310  AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL. 

Thirty  years  ago,  at  Berlin,  the  same  impression  was  left 
upon  me  by  his  "Infancy  of  Christ,"  which  I  heard  him 
conduct  himself.  His  art  seems  to  me  neither  fruitful  nor 
wholesome;  there  is  no  true  and  solid  beauty  in  it. 

I  ought  to  say,  however,  that  the  audience,  which  was 
u  fairly  full  one,  seemed  very  well  satisfied. 

July  17,  1877. — Yesterday  I  went  through  my  La  Fon- 
taine, and  noticed  the  omissions  in  him.  He  has  neither 
butterfly  nor  rose.  He  utilizes  neither  the  crane,  nor  the 
quail,  nor  the  dromedary,  nor  the  lizard.  There  is  not  a 
single  echo  of  chivalry  in  him.  For  him,  the  history  of 
France  dates  from  Louis  XIV.  His  geography  only 
ranges,  in  reality,  over  a  few  square  miles,  and  touches 
neither  the  Rhine  nor  the  Loire,  neither  the  mountains  nor 
the  sea.  He  never  invents  his  subjects,  but  indolently 
takes  them  ready-made  from  elsewhere.  But  with  all  this 
what  an  adorable  writer,  what  a  painter,  what  an  observer, 
what  a  humorist,  what  a  story-teller!  I  am  never  tired 
of  reading  him,  though  I  know  half  his  fables  by  heart. 
In  the  matter  of  vocabulary,  turns,  tones,  phrases,  idioms, 
his  style  is  perhaps  the  richest  of  the  great  period,  for  it 
combines,  in  the  most  skillful  way,  archaism  and  classic 
finish,  the  Gallic  and  the  French  elements.  Variety, 
satire,  finesse^  feeling,  movement,  terseness,  suavity,  grace, 
gayety,  at  times  even  nobleness,  gravity,  grandeur — every- 
thing— is  to  be  found  in  him.  And  then  the  happiness  of 
the  epithets,  the  piquancy  of  the  sayings,  the  felicity  of 
his  rapid  sketches  and  unforeseen  audacities,  and  the  unfor- 
gettable sharpness  of  phrase!  His  defects  are  eclipsed  by 
his  immense  variety  of  diiferent  aptitudes. 

One  has  only  to  compare  his  "  Woodcutter  and  Death  " 
with  that  of  Boileau  in  order  to  estimate  the  enormous 
difference  between  the  artist  and  the  critic  who  found  fault 
with  his  work.  La  Fontaine  gives  you  a  picture  of  the 
poor  peasant  under  the  monarchy;  Boileau  shows  you 
nothing  but  a  man  perspiring  under  a  heavy  load.  The 
first  is  a  historical  witness,  the  second  a  mere  academic 
rhymer.     From  La  Fontaine  it  is  possible  to  reconstruct 


AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL.  311 

the  whole  society  of  his  epoch,  and  the  old  Champenois 
with  his  beasts  remains  the  only  Homer  France  has  ever 
possessed.  He  has  as  many  portraits  of  men  and  women 
as  La  Bruyere,  and  Moliere  is  not  more  humorous. 

His  weak  side  is  his  epicureanism,  with  its  tinge  of  gross- 
ness.  This,  no  doubt,  was  what  made  Lamartine  dislike 
him.  .  The  religious  note  is  absent  from  his  lyre;  there  is 
nothing  in  him  which  shows  any  contact  with  Christianity, 
I  any  knowledge  of  the  sublimer  tragedies  of  the  soul.  Kind 
'nature  is  his  goddess,  Horace  his  prophet,  and  Montaigne 
his  gospel.  In  other  words,  his  horizon  is  that  of  the 
Renaissance.  This  pagan  island  in  the  full  Catholic 
stream  is  very  curious;  the  paganism  of  it  is  so  perfectly 
sincere  and  naive.  But  indeed,  Reblais,  Moliere,  Saint 
Evremond,  are  much  more  pagan  than  Voltaire.  It  is  as 
though,  for  the  genuine  Frenchman,  Christianity  was  a 
mere  pose  or  costume — something  which  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  heart,  with  the  real  man,  or  his  deeper  nature. 
This  division  of  things  is  common  in  Italy  too.-  It  is  the 
natural  effect  of  political  religions:  the  priest  becomes 
separated  from  the  layman,  the  believer  from  the  man, 
worship  from  sincerity. 

July  18,  1877. — I  have  just  come  across  a  character  in  a 
novel  with  a  passion  for  synonyms,  and  I  said  to  myself: 
Take  care — that  is  your  weakness  too.  In  your  search 
for  close  and  delicate  expression,  you  run  through  the 
whole  gamut  of  synonyms,and  your  pen  works  too  often  in 
series  of  three.  Beware!  Avoid  mannerisms  and  tricks- 
they  are  signs  of  weakness.  Subject  and  occasion  only 
must  govern  the  use  of  words.  Procedure  by  single  epithet 
gives  strength;  the  doubling  of  a  word  gives  clearness* 
because  it  supplies  the  two  extremities  of  the  series;  the 
trebling  of  it  gives  completeness  by  suggesting  at  once  the 
beginning,  middle,  and  end  of  the  idea;  while  a  quadruple 
phrase  may  enrich  by  force  of  enumeration. 

Indecision  being  my  principal  defect,  I  am  fond  of  a 
plurality  of  phrases  which  are  but  so  many  successive 
approximations  and  corrections.     I  am  especially  fond  of 


315>  AMIEL'8  JOURNAL. 

them  in  this  journal,  where  I  write  as  it  comes.  In  serious 
composition  two  is,  on  the  whole,  my  category.  But  it 
would  be  well  to  practice  one's  self  in  the  use  of  the  single 
word — of  the  shaft  delivered  promptly  and  once  for  all. 
I  should  have  indeed  to  cure  myself  of  hesitation  first. 
I  see  too  many  ways  of  saying  things;  a  more  decided 
mind  hits  on  the  right  way  at  once.  Singleness  of  phrase 
implies  courage,  self-confidence,  clear-sightedness.  To 
attain  it  there  must  be  no  doubting,  and  I  am  always 
doubting.     And  yet — 

"  Quiconque  est  loup  agisse  en  loup; 
C'est  le  plus  certain  de  beaucoup." 

I  wonder  whether  I  should  gain  anything  by  the  attempt 
to  assume  a  character  which  is  not  mine.  My  wavering 
manner,  born  of  doubt  and  scruple,  has  at  least  the  ad- 
vantage of  rendering  all  the  different  shades  of  my  thought, 
and  of  being  sincere.  If  it  were  to  become  terse,  affirma- 
tive, resolute,  would  it  not  be  a  mere  imitation? 

A  private  journal,  which  is  but  a  vehicle  for  meditation 
and  reverie,  beats  about  the  bush  as  it  pleases  without 
being  bound  to  make  for  any  definite  end.  Conversation 
with  self  is  a  gradual  process  of  thought-clearing.  Hence 
all  these  synonyms,  these  waverings,  these  repetitions  and 
returns  upon  one's  self.  Affirmation  may  be  brief;  inquiry 
takes  time;  and  the  line  which  thought  follows  is  neces- 
sarily an  irregular  one. 

I  am  conscious  indeed  that  at  bottom  there  is  but  one 
right  expression;*  but  in  order  to  find  it  I  wish  to  make 
my  choice  among  all  that  are  like  it;  and  my  mind 
instinctively  goes  through  a  series  of  verbal  modulations  in 

*  Compare  La  Bruyere: 

*'  Entre  toutes  les  differentes  expressions  qui  peuvent  rendre  une 
seule  de  nos  pensees  il  n'y  en  a  qu'une  qui  soit  la  bonne;  on  ne  la 
rencontre  pas  toujours  en  parlant  ou  en  ecrivant:  il  est  vray  nean- 
moins  qu'elle  existe,  que  tout  ce  qui  ne  Test  point  est  foible, 
et  ne  satisfait  point  un  homme  d'esprit  qui  veut  se  faire 
entendre." 


A  MI  EL' 8  JO  URN  A  L.  3 1  $ 

search  of  thac  shade  which  may  most  accurately  render  the 
idea.  Or  sometimes  it  is  the  idea  itself  which  has  to  be 
turned  over  and  over,  that  I  may  know  it  and  apprehend 
it  better.  I  think,  pen  in  hand;  it  is  like  the  disentan- 
glement, the  winding-off  of  a  skein.  Evidently  the  corre- 
sponding form  of  style  cannot*  have  the  qualities  which 
belong  to  thought  which  is  already  sure  of  itself,  and  only 
seeks  to  communicate  itself  to  others.  The  function  of 
the  private  journal  is  one  of  observation,  experiment, 
analysis,  contemplation ;  that  of  the  essay  or  article  is  to 
provoke  reflection ;  that  of  the  book  is  to  demonstrate. 

July  21,  1877. — A  superb  night — a  starry  sky — Jupiter 
and  Phoebe  holding  converse  before  my  windows.  Grandiose 
effects  of  light  and  shade  over  the  courtyard.  A  sonata  rose 
from  the  black  gulf  of  shadow  like  a  repentant  prayer 
wafted  from  purgatory.  The  picturesque  was  lost  in  poetry^ 
and  admiration  in  feeling. 

July  30,  1877. —  .  .  makes  a  very  true  remark  about 
Kenan,  a  propos  of  the  volume  of  "Les  Evangiles."  He 
brings  out  the  contradiction  between  the  literary  taste  of 
the  artist,  which  is  delicate,  individual,  and  true,  and  the 
opinions  of  the  critic,  which  are  borrowed,  old-fashioned 
and  wavering.  This  hesitancy  of  choice  between  the 
beautiful  and  the  true,  between  poetry  and  prose,  between 
art  and  learning,  is,  in  fact,  characteristic.  Kenan  has  a 
keen  love  for  science,  but  he  has  a  still  keener  love  for 
good  writing,  and,  if  necessary,  he  will  sacrifice  the  exact 
phrase  to  the  beautiful  phrase.  Science  is  his  material 
rather  than  his  object;  his  object  is  style  .  A  fine  passage 
is  ten  times  more  precious  in  his  eyes  than  the  discovery  of 
a  fact  or  the  rectification  of  a  date.  And  on  this  point  I 
am  very  much  with  him,  for  a  beautiful  piece  of  writing 
is  beautiful  by  virtue  of  a  kind  of  truth  which  is  truer 
than  any  mere  record  of  authentic  fects.  Kousseau  also 
thought  the  same.  A  chronicler  may  be  able  to  correct 
Tacitus,  but  Tacitus  survives  all  the  chroniclers.  I  know 
well  that  the  aesthetic  temptation  is  the  French  tempta- 
tion; I  have  often  bewailed  it,  and  yet,  if  I  desired  any- 


314  AMIKL'8  JOURNAL, 

thing,  it  would  be  to  be  a  writer,  a  great  writer.  To 
leave  a  monument  behind,  aere  perennius,  an  imper- 
ishable work  which  might  stir  the  thoughts,  the  feelings, 
the  dreams  of  men,  generation  after  generation — this  is  the 
only  glory  which  I  could  wish  for,  if  I  were  not  weaned 
even  from  this  wish  also.  -A  book  would  be  my  ambition, 
if  ambition  were  not  vanity  and  vanity  of  vanities. 

August  11,  1877. — The  growing  triumph  of  Darwinism 
— that  is  to  say  of  materialism,  or  of  force — threatens  the 
conception  of  justice.  But  justice  will  have  its  turn. 
The  higher  human  law  cannot  be  the  offspring  of  animality. 
Justice  is  the  right  to  the  maximum  of  individual  independ- 
ence compatible  with  the  same  liberty  for  others;  in  other 
words,  it  is  respect  for  man,  for  the  immature,  the  small, 
the  feeble;  it  is  the  guarantee  of  those  human  collectivities, 
associations,  states,  nationalities — those  voluntary  or  invol- 
untary unions — the  object  of  which  is  to  increase  the  sun? 
of  happiness,  and  to  satisfy  the  aspiration  of  the  indi- 
vidual. That  some  should  make  use  of  others  for  their 
own  purposes  is  an  injury  to  justice.  The  right  of  the 
stronger  is  not  a  right,  but  a  simple  fact,  which  obtains 
only  so  long  as  there  is  neither  protest  nor  resistance.  It 
is  like  cold,  darkness,  weight,  which  tyrannize  over  man 
until  he  has  invented  artificial  warmth,  artificial  light, 
and  machinery.  Human  industry  is  throughout  an  eman- 
cipation from  brute  nature,  and  the  advances  made  by 
justice  are  in  the  same  way  a  series  of  rebuffs  inflicted 
upon  the  tyranny  of  the  stronger.  As  the  medical  art 
consists  in  the  conquest  of  disease,  so  goodness  consists  in 
the  conquest  of  the  blind  ferocities  and  untamed  appetites 
of  the  human  animal.  I  see  the  same  law  throughout — 
increasing  emancipation  of  the  individual,  a  continuous 
ascent  of  being  toward  life,  happiness,  justice,  and  wisdom. 
Greed  and  gluttony  are  the  starting-point,  intelligence  and 
generosity  the  goal. 

August  21,  1877.  {Baths  of  Ems). — In  the  salon  there 
has  been  a  performance  in  chorus  of  "  Lorelei  "  and  other 
popular  airs.     What  in  our  country  is  only  done  for  wor- 


AMIEU 8  JOURNAL.  315 

ship  is  done  also  in  Germany  for  poetry  and  music.  Voices 
blend  together;  art  shares  the  privilege  of  religion.  It  is  a 
trait  which  is  neither  French  nor  English,  nor,  I  think, 
Italian.  The  spirit  of  artistic  devotion,  of  impersonal 
combination,  of  common,  harmonious,  disinterested  action, 
is  specially  German ;  it  makes  a  welcome  balance  to  cer- 
tain clumsy  and  prosaic  elements  in  the  race. 

Later. — Perhaps  the  craving  for  independence  of  thought 
— the  tendency  to  go  back  to  first  principles — is  really 
proper  to  the  Germanic  rnind  only.  The  Slavs  and  the 
Latins  are  governed  rathtCi"  by  the  collective  wisdom  of  the 
community,  by  tradition,  usage,  prejudice,  fashion;  or,  if 
they  break  through  these,  they  are  like  slaves  in  revolt, 
^vithout  any  real  living  apprehension  of  the  law  inherent 
in  things — the  true  law,  which  is  neither  written,  nor 
arbitrary,  nor  imposed.  The  German  wishes  to  get  at 
nature;  the  Frenchman,  the  Spaniard,  the  Eussian,  stop 
at  conventions.  The  root  of  the  problem  is  in  the  ques- 
tion of  the  relations  between  God  and  the  world.  Imma- 
nence or  transcendence — that,  step  by  step,  decides  the 
meaning  of  everything  else.  If  the  mind  is  radically  exter- 
nal to  things,  it  is  not  called  upon  to  conform  to  them. 
If  the  mind  is  destitute  of  native  truth,  it  must  get  its 
truth  from  outside,  by  revelations.  And  so  you  get 
thought  despising  nature,  and  in  bondage  to  the  church — 
so  you  have  the  Latin  world ! 

November  6,  1877.  (Geneva). — We  talk  of  love  many 
years  before  we  know  anything  about  it,  and  we  think  we 
know  it  because  we  talk  of  it,  or  because  we  repeat  what 
other  people  say  of  it,  or  what  books  tell  us  about  it.  So 
that  there  are  ignorances  of  different  degrees,  and  degrees 
of  knowledge  which  are  quite  deceptive.  One  of  the 
worst  plagues  of  society  is  this  thoughtless  inexhaustible 
verbosity,  this  careless  use  of  words,  this  pretense  of 
knowing  a  thing  because  we  talk  about  it — these  counter- 
feits of  belief,  thought,  love,  or  earnestness,  which  all  the 
while  are  mere  babble.  The  worst  of  it  is,  that  as  self-love 
is  •  behind  the  babble,  these  ignorances  of  society  are  in 


316  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

general  ferociously  affirmative;  chatter  mistakes  itself  foi 
opinion,  prejudice  poses  as  principle.  Parrots  behave  as 
though  they  were  thinking  beings;  imitations  give  them- 
selves out  as  originals;  and  politeness  demands  the  accept- 
ance of  the  convention.     It  is  very  wearisome. 

Language  is  the  vehicle  of  this  confusion,  the  instru- 
ment of  this  unconsicous  fraud,  and  all  evils  of  the  kind 
are  enormously  increased  by  universal  education,  by  the 
periodical  press,  and  by  all  the  other  processes  of  vulgariza- 
tion in  use  at  the  present  time.  Every  one  deals  in  paper 
money;  few  have  ever  handled  gold.  We  live  on  symbols, 
and  even,  on  the  symbols  of  symbols;  we  have  never 
grasped  or  verified  things  for  ourselves;  we  judge  every- 
thing, and  we  know  nothing. 

How  seldom  we  meet  with  originality,  individuality, 
sincerity,  nowadays ! — with  men  who  are  worth  the  trouble 
of  listening  to!  The  true  self  in  the  majority  is  lost  in  the 
borrowed  self.  How  few  are  anything  else  than  a  bundle 
of  inclinations — anything  more  than  animals — whose  lan- 
guage and  whose  gait  alone  recall  to  us  the  highest  rank 
m  nature ! 

The  immense  majority  of  our  species  are  candidates  for 
humanity,  and  nothing  more.  Virtually  we  are  men ;  we 
might  be,  we  ought  to  be,  men ;  but  practically  we  do  not 
succeed  in  realizing  the  type  of  our  race.  Semblances  and 
counterfeits  of  men  fill  up  the  habitable  earth,  people  the 
islands  and  the  continents,  the  country  and  the  town.  If 
we  wish  to  respect  men  we  must  forget  what  they  are,  and 
think  of  the  ideal  which  they  carry  hidden  within  them, 
of  the  just  man  and  the  noble,  the  man  of  intelligence  and 
goodness,  inspiration  and  creative  force,  who  is  loyal  and 
true,  faithful  and  trustworthy,  of  the  higher  man,  in 
short,  and  that  divine  thing  we  call  a  soul.  The  only  men 
who  deserve  the  name  are  'the  heroes,  the  geniuses,  the 
saints,  the  harmonious,  puissant,  and  perfect  samples  of 
,  the  race. 

Very  few  individuals  deserve  to  be  listened  to,  but  all 
deserve  that  our  curiosity  with  regard  to  them  should  be  a 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  31? 

J)itif  ul  curiosity — that  the  insight  we  bring  to  bear  on  them 
should  be  charged  with  humility.  Are  we  not  all  ship- 
wrecked, diseased,  condemned  to  death?  Let  each  work 
out  his  own  salvation,  and  blame  no  one  but  himself;  so 
the  lot  of  all  will  be  bettered.  Whatever  impatience  we 
may  feel  toward  our  neighbor,  and  whatever  indignation 
our  race  may  rouse  in  us,  we  are  chained  one  to  another, 
and,  companions  in  labor  and  misfortune,  have  everything 
to  lose  by  mutual  recrimination  and  reproach.  Let  us  be 
silent  as  to  each  other's  weakness,  helpful,  tolerant,  nay, 
tender  toward  each  other!  Or,  if  we  cannot  feel  tender- 
ness, may  we  at  least  feel  pity !  May  we  put  away  from  us 
the  satire  which  scourges  and  the  anger  which  brands;  the 
oil  and  wine  of  the  good  Samaritan  are  of  more  avail.  We 
may  make  the  ideal  a  reason  for  contempt;  but  it  is  more 
beautiful  to  make  it  a  reason  for  tenderness. 

December  9,  1877. — The  modern  haunters  of  Parnassus* 
carve  urns  of  agate  and  of  onyx,  but  inside  the  urns  what 
is  there? — ashes.  Their  work  lacks  feeling,  seriousness, 
sincerity,  and  pathos — in  a  word,  soul  and  moral  life.  I 
cannot  bring  myself  to  sympathize  with  such  a  way  of 
understanding  poetry.  The  talent  shown  is  astonishing, 
but  stuff  and  matter  are  wanting.  It  is  an  effort  of  the 
imagination  to  stand  alone — a  substitute  for  everything 
else.  We  find  metaphors,  rhymes,  music,  color,  but  not 
man,  not  humanity.  Poetry  of  this  factitious  kind  may 
beguile  one  at  twenty,  but  what  can  one  make  of  it  at 
fifty?  It  reminds  me  of  Pergamos,  of  Alexandria,  of  all 
the  epochs  of  decadence  when  beauty  of  form  hid  poverty 
of  thought  and  exhaustion  of  feeling.  I  strongly  share 
the  repugnance  which  this  poetical  school  arouses  in  simple 
people.     It  is  as  though  it  only  cared  to  please  the  world- 

*  Amiel's  expression  is  Les  Parnassieus,  an  old  name  revived, 
which  nowadays  describes  the  younger  school  of  French  poetry 
represented  by  such  names  as  Theophile  Gautier,  Leconte  de  Lisle, 
Theodore  de  Bauville,  and  Baudelaire.  The  modern  use  of  the 
word  dates  from  the  publication  of  "La  Parnasse  Contemporain  " 
(Lemerre,  1866). 


318  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

worn,  the  ovei -subtle,  the  corrupted,  while  it  ignores  all 
normal  healthy  life,  virtuous  habits,  pure  affections,  steady 
labor,  honesty,  and  duty.  It  is  an  affectation,  and  because 
it  is  an  affectation  the  school  is  struck  with  sterility. 
The  reader  desires  in  the  poet  something  better  than  a 
juggler  in  rhyme,  or  a  conjurer  in  verse;  he  looks  to  find 
in  him  a  painter  of  life,  a  being  who  thinks,  loves,  and  has 
a  conscience,  who  feels  passion  and  repentance. 


Composition  is  a  process  of  combination,  in  which 
thought  puts  together  complementary  truths,  and  talent 
fuses  into  harmony  the  most  contrary  qualities  of  style. 

So  that  there  is  no  composition  without  effort,  without 
pain  even,  as  in  all  bringing  forth.  The  reward  is  the 
giving  birth  to  something  living — something,  that  is  to 
say,  which,  by  a  kind  of  magic,  makes  a  living  unity  out 
of  such  opposed  attributes  as  orderliness  and  spontaneity^ 
thought  and  imagination,  solidity  and  charm. 

The  true  critic  strives  for  a  clear  vision  of  things  as  they 
are — for  justice  and  fairness;  his  effort  is  to  get  free  from 
himself,  so  that  he  may  in  no  way  disfigure  that  which  he 
wishes  to  understand  or  reproduce.  His  superiority  to 
the  common  herd  lies  in  this  effort,  even  when  its  success 
is  only  partial.  He  distrusts  his  own  senses,  he  sifts  his 
own  impressions,  by  returning  upon  them  from  different 
sides  and  at  different  times,  by  comparing,  moderating, 
shading,  distinguishing,  and  so  endeavoring  to  approach 
more  and  more  nearly  to  the  formula  which  represents  the 
maximum  of  truth. 


Is  it  not  the  sad  natures  who  are  most  tolerant  of  gay ety? 
They  know  that  gay  ety  means  impulse  and  vigor,  that 
generally  speaking  it  is  disguised  kindliness,  and  that  if  it 
were  a  mere  affair  of  temperament  and  mood,  still  it  is  a 
blessing. 


The  art  which  is  grand  and  yet  simple  is  that  which  pre- 
supposes the  greatest  elevation  both  in  artist  and  in  public. 


AMIEDS  JOURNA.^.  319 

How  much  folly  is  compatible  with  ultimate  wisdom  and 
prudence?  It  is  difficult  to  say.  The  cleverest  folk  are 
those  who  discover  soonest  how  to  utilize  their  neighbor's 
experience,  and  so  get  rid  in  good  time  of  their  natural 
presumption. 

We  must  try  to  grasp  the  spirit  of  things,  to  see  cor-  i 
rectly,  to  speak  to  the  point,  to  give  practicable  advice,  to 
act  on  the  spot,  to  arrive  at  the  proper  moment,  to  stop  in 
time.       Tact,   measure,  occasion — all  these    deserve    our 
cultivation  and  respect. 


April  22,  1878. — Letter  from  my  cousin  Julia.  These 
kind  old  relations  find  it  very  difficult  to  understand  a 
man's  life,  especially  a  student's  life.  The  hermits  of 
reverie  are  scared  by  the  busy  world,  and  feel  themselves 
out  of  place  in  action.  But  after  all,  we  do  not  change  at 
seventy,  and  a  good,  pious  old  lady,  half-blind  and  living 
in  a  village,  can  no  longer  extend  her  point  of  view,  nor 
form  any  idea  of  existences  which  have  no  relation  with 
her  own. 

What  is  the  link  by  which  these  souls,  shut  in  and 
encompassed  as  they  are  by  the  details  of  daily  life,  lay 
hold  on  the  ideal?  The  link  of  religious  aspiration.  Faith 
is  the  plank  which  saves  them.  They  know  the 
meaning  of  the  higher  life;  their  soul  is  athirst  for 
heaven.  Their  opinions  are  defective,  but  their  moral 
experience  is  great;  their  intellect  is  full  of  darkness 
but  their  souls  is  full  of  light.  We  scarcely  know  how  to 
talk  to  them  about  the  things  of  earth,  but  they  are  ripe 
and  mature  in  the  things  of  the  heart.  If  they  cannot 
understand  us,  it  is  for  us  to  make  advances  to  them,  to 
speak  their  language,  to  enter  into  their  range  of  ideas, 
their  modes  of  feeling.  We  must  approach  them  on  their 
noble  side,  and,  that  we  may  show  them  the  more  respect, 
induce  them  to  open  to  us  the  casket  of  their  most 
treasured  thoughts.  There  is  always  some  grain  of  gold  at 
the  bottom  of  every  honorable  old  age.  Let  it  be  our  busi 
ness  to  give  it  an  opportunity  of  showing  itself  to  affection- 
ate eyes. 


320  ^ MIEL'8  JO  URNAL. 

May  10,  1878. — I  have  just  come  back  from  a  solitary 
walk.  I  heard  nightingales,  saw  white  lilac  and  orchard 
trees  in  bloom.  My  heart  is  full  of  impressions  showered 
upon  it  by  the  chaffinches,  the  golden  orioles,  the  grass- 
hoppers, the  hawthorns,  and  the  primroses.  A  dull,  gray, 
fleecy  sky  brooded  with  a  certain  melancholy  over  the  nuptial 

'  splendors  of  vegetation.  Many  painful  memories  stirred 
afresh  in  me;  at  Pre  l'Ev6que,  at  Jargonnant,  at  Viller- 
euse,  a  score  of  phantoms — phantoms  of  youth — rose  with 
sad  eyes  to  greet  me.  The  walls  had  changed,  and  roads 
which  were  once  shady  and  dreamy  I  found  now  waste  and 
treeless.  But  at  the  first  trills  of  the  nightingale  a  flood 
of  tender  feeling  filled  my  heart.  I  felt  myself  soothed, 
grateful,  melted;  a  mood  of  serenity  and  contemplation 
took  possession  of  me.  A  certain  little  path,  a  very  king- 
dom of  green,  with  fountain,  thickets,  gentle  ups  and 
downs,  and  an  abundance  of  singing-birds,  delighted  me, 
and  did  me  inexpressible  good.  Its  peaceful  remoteness 
brought  back  the  bloom  of  feeling.     I  had  need  of  it. 

May  19,  1878. — Criticism  is  above  all  a  gift,  an  intui- 
tion, a  matter  of  tact  and  flair;  it  cannot  be  taught  or 
demonstrated — it  is  an  art.  Critical  genius  means  an  apti- 
tude for  discerning  truth  under  appearances  or  in  disguises 
which  conceal  it;  for  discovering  it  in  spite  of  the  errors  of 
testimony,  the  frauds  of  tradition,  the  dust  of  time,  the 
loss  or  alteration  of  texts.  It  is  the  sagacity  of  the  hunter 
whom  nothing  deceives  for  long,  and  whom  no  ruse  can 
throw  off  the  trail.  It  is  the  talent  of  the  Juge  d^Instruc- 

'  Hon,  who  knows  how  to  interrogate  circumstances,  and  to 
extract  an  unknown  secret  from  a  thousand  falsehoods. 
The  true  critic  can  understand  everything,  but  he  will  be 
the  dupe  of  nothing,  and  to  no  convention  will  he  sacrifice 
his  duty,  which  is  to  find  out  and  proclaim  truth.  Com- 
petent learning,  general  cultivation,  absolute  probity, 
accuracy  of  general  view,  human  sympathy  and  technical 
capacity — how  many  things  are  necessary  to  the  critic, 
without  reckoning  grace,  delicacy,  savoir  vivre,  and  the 
gift  of  happy  phrase-making ! 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.  321 

July  36, 1878. — Every  morning  I  wake  up  with  the  same 
sense  of  vain  struggle  against  a  mountain  tide  which  }8 
about  to  overwhelm  me.  1  shall  die  by  suffocation,  and 
the  suffocation  has  begun;  the  progress  it  has  already 
made  stimulates  it  to  go  on. 

How  can  one  make  any  plans  when  every  day  brings 
with  it  some  fresh  misery?  I  cannot  even  decide  on  a  line 
of  action  in  a  situation  so  full  of  confusion  and  uncertainty 
in  which  I  look  forward  to  the  worst,  while  yet  all  is 
doubtful.  Have  I  still  a  few  years  before  me  or  only  a 
few  months?  Will  death  be  slow  or  will  it  come  upon  me 
as  a  sudden  catastrophe?  How  am  I  to  bear  the  days  as 
they  come?  how  am  I  to  fill  them?  How  am  I  to  die  with 
calmness  and  dignity?  I  know  not.  Everything  I  do  for 
the  first  time  I  do  badly;  but  here  everything  is  new; 
there  can  be  no  help  from  experience;  the  end  must  be  a 
chance!  How  mortifying  for  one  who  has  set  so  great  a 
price  upon  independence — to  depend  upon  a  thousand 
unforeseen  contingencies !  He  knows  not  how  he  will  act 
or  what  he  will  become;  he  would  fain  speak  of  these 
things  with  a  friend  of  good  sense  and  good  counsel — but 
who?  He  dares  not  alarm  the  affections  which  are  most 
his  own,  and  he  is  almost  sure  that  any  others  would  try 
to  distract  his  attention,  and  would  refuse  to  see  the  posi- 
tion as  it  is. 

And  while  I  wait  (wait  for  what? — certainty?)  the  weeks 
flow  by  like  water,  and  strength  wastes  away  like  a  smok- 
ing candle.     .     .     . 

Is  one  free  to  let  one's  self  drift  into  death  without  resist- 
ance? Is  self-preservation  a  duty?  Do  we  owe  it  to  those 
who  love  us  to  prolong;  this  desperate  struggle  to  its  utmost 
limit?  I  think  so,  but  it  is  one  fetter  the  more.  For  we 
must  then  feign  a  hope  which  we  do  not  feel,  and  hide  the 
absolute  discouragement  of  which  the  heart  is  really  full. 
Well,  why  not?  Those  who  succumb  are  bound  in  gener- 
osil  7  not  to  cool  the  ardor  of  those  who  are  still  battling, 
still  enjoying. 

Two  parallel  roads  le^  to  the  same  result j  meditatien 


822  AMIEVS  JOURNAL. 

paralyzes  me,  physiology  condemns  me.  My  soul  is  dying, 
my  body  is  dying.  In  every  direction  the  end  is  closing 
upon  me.  My  own  melancholy  anticipates  and  endorses 
the  medical  judgment  which  says,  "  Your  journey  is  done." 
The  two  verdicts  point  to  the  same  result-— that  I  have  no 
longer  a  future.  And  yet  there  is  a  side  of  me  which 
says,  "Absurd!"  which  is  incredulous,  and  inclined  to 
regard  it  all  as  a  bad  dream.  In  vain  the  reason  asserts  it ; 
the  mind's  inward  assent  is  still  refused.  Another  contra- 
diction 1 

I  have  not  the  strength  to  hope,  and  I  have  not  the 
strength  to  submit.  I  believe  no  longer,  and  I  believe 
still.  I  feel  that  I  am  dying,  and  yet  I  cannot  realize  that 
I  am  dying.  Is  it  madness  already?  No,  it  is  human 
nature  taken  in  the  act;  it  is  life  itself  which  is  a  contra- 
diction, for  life  means  an  incessant  death  and  a  daily  resur- 
rection ;  it  affirms  and  it  denies,  it  destroys  and  constructs, 
it  gathers  and  scatters,  it  humbles  and  exalts  at  the  same 
time.  To  live  is  to  die  partially — to  feel  one's  self  in  the 
heart  of  a  whirlwind  of  opposing  forces — to  be  an  enigma. 

If  the  invisible  type  molded  by  these  two  contradictory 
currents — if  this  form  which  presides  over  all  my  changes 
of  being — has  itself  general  and  original  value,  what  does 
it  matter  whether  it  carries  on  the  game  a  few  months  or 
years  longer,  or  not?  It  has  done  what  it  had  to  do,  it 
b«,3  represented  a  certain  unique  combination,  one  particu- 
lar expression  of  the  race.  These  types  are  shadows — 
manes.  Century  after  century  employs  itself  in  fashioning 
them.  Glory — fame — is  the  proof  that  one  type  has 
seemed  to  the  other  types  newer,  rarer,  and  more  beautiful 
than  the  rest.  The  common  types  are  souls  too,  only  they 
have  no  interest  except  for  the  Creator,  and  for  a  small 
number  of  individuals. 

To  feel  one's  own  fragility  is  well,  but  to  be  indifferent 
to  it  is  better.  To  take  the  measure  of  one's  own  misery 
is  profitable,  but  to  understand  its  raison  (Tetre  is  still 
more  profitable.  To  mourn  for  one's  self  is  a  last  sign  of 
vanity;  we  ought  only  to  refi;ret  that  which  has  real  yalue, 


AMIKL'S  JOURNAL.  333 

and  to  regret  one's  self,  is  to  furnish  involuntary  evidence 
that  one  had  attached  importance  to  one's  self.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  a  proof  of  ignorance  of  our  true  worth  and 
function.  It  is  not  necessary  to  live,  but  it  is  necessary  to 
preserve  one's  type  unharmed,  to  remain  faithful  to  one's 
idea,  to  protect  one's  monad  against  alteration  and  degra 
dation. 

November  7,  1878. — To-day  we  have  been  talking  of 
realism  in  painting,  and,  in  connection  with  it,  of  that  poet- 
ical and  artistic  illusion  which  does  not  aim  at  being  con- 
founded with  reality  itself.  Eealism  wishes  to  entrap  sen- 
sation ;  the  object  of  true  art  is  only  to  charm  the  imagina- 
tion, not  to  deceive  the  eye.  When  we  see  a  good  portrait 
we  say,  "It  is  alive!" — in  other  words,  our  imagination 
lends  it  life.  On  the  other  hand,  a  wax  figure  produces  a 
sort  of  terror  in  us;  its  frozen  life-likeness  makes  a  death- 
like impression  on  us,  and  we  say,  "It  is  a  ghost!  "  In  the 
one  case  we  see  what  is  lacking,  and  demand  it;  in  the  other 
we  see  what  is  given  us,  and  we  give  on  our  side.  Art, 
then,  addresses  itself  to  the  imagination;  everything  that 
appeals  to  sensation  only  is  below  art,  almost  outside  art. 
A  work  of  art  ought  to  set  the  poetical  faculty  in  us  to 
work,  it  ought  to  stir  us  to  imagine,  to  complete  our  per- 
ception of  a  thing.  And  we  can  only  do  this  when  the 
artist  leads  the  way.  Mere  copyist's  painting,  realistic 
reproduction,  pure  imitation,  leave  us  cold  because  their 
author  is  a  machine,  a  mirror,  an  iodized  plate,  and  not 
a  soul. 

Art  lives  by  appearances,  but  these  appearances  are 
spiritual  visions,  fixed  dreams.  Poetry  represents  to  us 
nature  become  con-substantial  with  the  soul,  because  in  it 
nature  is  only  a  reminiscence  touched  with  emotion,  an 
image  vibrating  with  our  own  life,  a  form  without  weight 
• — in  short,  a  mode  of  the  soul.  The  poetry  which  is  most 
real  and  objective  is  the  expression  of  a  soul  Avhich  throws 
itself  into  things,  and  forgets  itself  in  their  presence  more 
readily  than  others;  but  still,  it  is  the  expression  of  the 
soul,  and  hence  what  we  call  style.     Style  may  be  only  col- 


324  AMIEU8  JOURNAL. 

lective,  hieratic,  national,  so  long  as  the  artist  is  still  the 
interpreter  of  the  community;  it  tends  to  become  personal 
in  proportion  as  society  makes  room  for  individuality  and 
favors  its  expansion. 


There  is  a  way  of  killing  truth  by  truths.  Under  the 
pretense  that  we  want  to  study  it  more  in  detail  we  pul- 
verize the  statue — it  is  an  absurdity  of  which  our  pedantry 
is  constantly  guilty.  Those  who  can  only  see  the  fragments 
of  a  thing  are  to  me  esprits  faux,  just  as  much  as  those 
who  disfigure  the  fragments.  The  good  critic  ought  to  be 
master  of  the  three  capacities,  the  three  modes  of  seeing 
men  and  things — he  should  be  able  simultaneously  to  see 
them  as  they  are,  as  they  might  be,  and  as  they  ought 
to  be. 


Modern  culture  is  a  delicate  electuary  made  up  of  varied 
savors  and  subtle  colors,  which  can  be  more  easily  felt 
than  measured  or  defined.  Its  very  superiority  consists  in 
the  complexity,  the  association  of  contraries,  the  skillful 
combination  it  implies.  The  man  of  to-day,  fashioned  by 
the  historical  and  geographical  influences  of  twenty  coun- 
tries and  of  thirty  centuries,  trained  and  modified  by  all 
the  sciences  and  all  the  arts,  the  supple  recipient  of  all 
literatures,  is  an  entirely  new  product.  He  finds  affinities, 
relationships,  analogies  everywhere,  but  at  the  same  time 
he  condenses  and  sums  up  what  is  elsewhere  scattered.  He 
is  like  the  smile  of  La  Gioconda,  which  seems  to  reveal  a 
soul  to  the  spectator  only  to  leave  him  the  more  certainly 
under  a  final  impression  of  mystery,  so  many  different 
things  are  expressed  in  it  at  once. 


To  understand  things  we  must  have  been  once  in  them 
and  then  have  come  out  of  them ;  so  that  first  there  must 
be  captivity  and  then  deliverance,  illusion  followed  by 
disillusion,  enthusiasm  by  disappointment.  He  who  is  still 
under  the  spell,  and  he  who  has  never  felt  the  spell,  are 
equally  incompetent.     We  only  know  well  what  we  have 


A  MTEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  325 

first  believed,  then  judged.  To  understand  we  must  be 
free,  yet  not  have  been  always  free.  The  same  truth  holds, 
whether  it  is  a  question  of  love,  of  art,  of  religion,  or  of 
patriotism.  Sympathy  is  a  first  condition  of  criticism; 
reason  and  Justice  presuppose,  at  their  origin,  emotion. 


What  is  an  intelligent  man?  A  man  who  enters  with 
ease  and  completeness  into  the  spirit  of  things  and  the 
intention  of  persons,  and  who  arrives  at  an  end  by  the 
shortest  route.  Lucidity  and  suppleness  of  thought, 
critical  delicacy  and  inventive  resource,  these  are  his 
attributes. 


Analysis  kills  spontaneity.  The  grain  once  ground  into 
flour  springs  and  germinates  no  more. 

January  3,  1879. — Letter  from .     This  kind  friend 

of  mine  has  no  pity.  ...  I  have  been  trying  to  quiet 
his  over-delicate  susceptibilities.  .  .  It  is  difficult  to 
write  perfectly  easy  letters  when  one  finds  them  studied 
with  a  magnifying  glass,  and  treated  like  monumental 
inscriptions,  in  which  each  character  has  been  deliberately 
engraved  with  a  view  to  an  eternity  of  life.  Such  dispro- 
portion between  the  word  and  its  commentary,  between 
the  playfulness  of  the  writer  and  the  analytical  temper  of 
the  reader,  is  not  favorable  to  ease  of  style.  One  dares  not 
be  one's  natural  self  with  these  serious  folk  who  attach 
importance  to  everything;  it  is  difficult  to  write  open- 
heartedly  if  one  must  weigh  every  phrase  and  every  word. 

Esprit  means  taking  things  in  the  sense  which  they  are 
meant  to  have,  entering  into  the  tone  of  other  people,  being 
able  to  place  one's  self  on  the  required  level;  esprit  is  that 
just  and  accurate  sense  which  divines,appreciates,and  weighs 
quickly,  lightly,  and  well.  The  mind  must  have  its  play, 
the  Muse  is  winged— the  Greeks  knew  it,  and  Socrates. 

January  13,  1879. — It  is  impossible  for  me  to  remember 
what  letters  I  wrote  yesterday,  A  single  night  digs  a  gulf 
between  the  self  of  yesterday  and  the  self  of  to-day.     My 


826  AMIEU8  JOURNAL, 

life  is  without  unity  of  action,  because  my  actions  them- 
selves are  escaping  from  the  control  of  memory.  My  men- 
tal power,  occupied  in  gaining  possession  of  itself  under 
the  form  of  consciousness,  seems  to  be  letting  go  its  hold 
on  all  that  generally  peoples  the  understanding,  as  the 
glacier  throws  off  the  stones  and  fragments  fallen  into  its 
crevasses,  that  it  may  remain  pure  crystal.  The  philosophic 
mind  is  loth  to  overweight  itself  with  too  many  material 
facts  or  trivial  memories.  Thought  clings  only  to  thought 
— that  is  to  say,  to  itself,  to  the  psychological  process. 
The  mind's  only  ambition  is  for  an  enriched  experience. 
It  finds  its  pleasure  in  studying  the  play  of  its  own  facul- 
ties, and  the  study  passes  easily  into  an  aptitude  and  habit. 
Eeflection  becomes  nothing  more  than  an  apparatus  for 
the  registration  of  the  impressions,  emotions,  and  ideas 
which  pass  across  the  mind.  The  whole  moulting  process 
is  carried  on  so  energetically  that  the  mind  is  not  only 
unclothed,  but  stripped  of  itself,  and,  so  to  speak, 
de-suhstantiated.  The  wheel  turns  so  quickly  that  it 
melts  around  the  mathematical  axis,  which  alone  remainc 
cold  because  it  is  impalpable,  and  has  no  thickness.  All 
this  is  natural  enough,  but  very  dangerous. 

So  long  as  one  is  numbered  among  the  living — so  long, 
that  is  to  say,  as  one  is  still  plunged  in  the  world  of  men, 
a  sharer  of  their  interests,  conflicts,  vanities,  passions,  and 
duties,  one  is  bound  to  deny  one's  self  this  subtle  state  of 
consciousness ;  one  must  consent  to  be  a  separate  individual, 
having  one's  special  name,  position,  age,  and  sphere  of 
activity.  In  spite  of  all  the  temptations  of  impersonality, 
one  must  resume  the  position  of  a  being  imprisoned  within 
certain  limits  of  time  and  space,  an  individual  with  special 
surroundings,  friends,  enemies,  profession,  country,  bound 
to  house  and  feed  himself,  to  make  up  his  accounts  and 
look  after  his  affairs;  in  short,  one  must  behave  like  all 
tne  world.  There  are  days  when  all  these  details  seem  to 
me  a  dream — when  I  wonder  at  the  desk  under  my  hand, 
at  my  body  itself — when  I  ask  myself  if  there  is  a  street 
before  my  house,  and  if  all  this  geographical  and  topo- 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  327 

graphical  phantasmagoria  is  indeed  real.  Time  and  space 
become  then  mere  specks;  I  become  a  sharer  in  a  purely 
spiritual  existence ;  I  see  myself  suh  specie  wternitatis. 

Is  not  mind  simply  that  which  enables  us  to  merge 
finite  reality  in  the  infinite  possibility  around  it?  Or,  to 
put  it  differently,  is  not  mind  the  universal  virtuality,  the 
universe  latent?  If  so,  its  zero  would  be  the  germ  of  the 
infinite,  which  is  expressed  mathematically  by  the  double 
zero  (00). 

Deduction :  that  the  mind  may  experience  the  infinite 
in  itself;  that  in  the  human  individual  there  arises  some- 
times the  divine  spark  which  reveals  to  him  the  existence 
of  the  original,  fundamental,  principal  Being,  within 
which  all  is  contained  like  a  series  within  its  generating 
formula.  The  universe  is  but  a  radiation  of  mind;  and 
the  radiations  of  the  Divine  mind  are  for  us  more  than 
appearances;  they  have  a  reality  parallel  to  our  own.  The 
radiations  of  our  mind  are  imperfect  reflections  from  the 
great  show  of  fireworks  set  in  motion  by  Brahma,  and 
great  art  is  great  only  because  of  its  conformities  with  the 
Divine  order — with  that  which  is. 

Ideal  conceptions  are  the  mind's  anticipation  of  such  an 
order.  The  mind  is  capable  of  them  because  it  is  mind, 
and,  as  such,  perceives  the  Eternal.  The  real,  on  the 
contrary,  is  fragmentary  and  passing.  Law  alone  is  eternal. 
The  ideal  is  then  the  imperishable  hope  of  something  better 
— the  mind's  involuntary  protest  against  the  present,  the 
leaven  of  the  future  working  in  it.  It  is  the  supernatural 
in  us,  or  rather  the  super-animal,  and  the  ground  of  human 
progress.  He  who  has  no  ideal  contents  Ijimself  with  what 
is;  he  has  no  quarrel  with  facts,  which  for  him  are  identi- 
cal with  the  just,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful. 

But  why  is  the  divine  radiation  imperfect?  Because  it 
is  still  going  on.  Our  planet,  for  example,  is  in  the  mid- 
course  of  its  experience.  Its  flora  and  fauna  are  still  chang- 
ing. The  evolution  of  humanity  is  nearer  its  origin  than 
its  close.  The  complete  spiritualization  of  the  animal 
element  in  nature  seems  to  be  singularly  difiicult,  and  it  is 


328  AMIKL'S  JOURNAL. 

the  task  of  our  species.  Its  performance  is  hindered  b^^ 
error,  evil,  selfishness,  and  death,  without  counting  telluric 
catastrophes.  The  edifice  of  a  common  happiness,  a  com- 
mon science  of  morality  and  justice,  is  sketched,  but  only 
sketched.  A  thousand  retarding  and  perturbing  causea 
hinder  this  giant's  task,  in  which  nations,  races,  and  con- 
tinents take  part.  At  the  present  moment  humanity  is 
not  yet  constituted  as  a  physical  unity,  and  its  general 
♦ducation  is  not  yet  begun.  All  our  attempts  at  order  as 
yet  have  been  local  crystallizations.  Now,  indeed,  the 
different  possibilities  are  beginning  to  combine  (union  of 
posts  and  telegraphs,  universal  exhibitions,  voyages  round 
the  globes,  international  congresses,  etc.).  Science  and 
common  interest  are  binding  together  the  great  fractions, 
of  humanity,  which  religion  and  language  have  kept 
apart.  A  year  in  which  there  has  been  talk  of  a  network 
of  African  railways,  running  from  the  coast  to  the  center 
and  bringing  the  Atlantic,  the  Mediterranean,  and  the 
Indian  Ocean  into  communication  with  each  other — such 
a  year  is  enough  to  mark  a  new  epoch.  The  fantastic 
has  become  the  conceivable,  the  possible  tends  to  become 
the  real ;  the  earth  becomes  the  garden  of  man.  Man's 
chief  problem  is  how  to  make  the  cohabitation  of  the 
individuals  of  his  species  possible;  how,  that  is  to  say,  to 
secure  for  each  successive  epoch  the  law,  the  order,  the 
equilibrium  which  befits  it.  Division  of  labor  allows  him 
to  explore  in  every  direction  at  once;  industry,  science, 
art,  law,  education,  morals,  religion,  politics,  and  economi- 
ual  relations — all  are  in  process  of  birth. 

Thus  everything  may  be  brought  back  to  zero  by  the 
mind,  but  it  is  a  fruitful  zero — a  zero  which  contains  the 
universe  and,  in  particular,  humanity.  The  mind  has  no 
more  difficulty  in  tracking  the  real  within  the  innumerable 
than  in  apprehending  infinite  possibility.  00  may  issue 
from  0,  or  may  return  to  it. 

January  19,  1879. — Charity — goodness — places  a  volun- 
tary curb  on  acuteness  of  perception;  it  screens  and 
softens  the  rays  of  a  too  vivid  insight;  it  refuses  to  see  too 


AMIEU 8  JOURNAL.  339 

clearly  the  ugliness  and  misery  of  the  great  intellectual 
hospital  around  it.  True  goodness  is  loth  to  recognize 
any  privilege  in  itself;  it  prefers  to  be  humble  and  chari- 
table; it  tries  not  to  see  what  stares  it  in  the  face — that  is 
to  say,  the  imperfections,  infirmities,  and  errors  of  human- 
kind; its  pity  puts  on  airs  of  approval  and  encouragement. 
It  triumphs  over  its  own  repulsions  that  it  may  help  and 
raise. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that  Vinet  praised  weak 
things.  If  so,  it  was  not  from  any  failure  in  his  own 
critical  sense;  it  was  from  charity.  "Quench  not  the 
smoking  flax," — to  which  I  add,  "Never  give  unnecessary 
pain.  The  cricket  is  not  the  nightingale;  why  tell  him 
so?  Throw  yourself  into  the  mind  of  the  cricket — the 
process  is  newer  and  more  ingenious;  and  it  is  what 
charity  commands. 

Intellect  is  aristocratic,  charity  is  democratic.  In  a 
democracy  the  general  equality  of  pretensions,  combined 
with  the  inequality  of  merits,  creates  considerable  practical 
difficulty;  some  get  out  of  it  by  making  their  prudence  a 
muzzle  on  their  frankness;  others,  by  using  kindness  as  a 
corrective  of  perspicacity.  On  the  whole,  kindness  is 
safer  than  reserve;  it  inflicts  no  wound,  and  kills  nothing. 

Charity  is  generous;  it  runs  a  risk  willingly,  and  'in 
spite  of  a  hundred  successive  experiences,  it  thinks  no  evil 
at  the  hundred-and-first.  We  cannot  be  at  the  same  time 
kind  and  wary,  nor  can  we  serve  two  masters — love  and 
selfishness.  We  must  be  knowingly  rash,  that  we  may  not 
be  like  the  clever  ones  of  the  world,  who  never  forget  their 
own  interests.  We  must  be  able  to  submit  to  being 
deceived;  it  is  the  sacrifice  which  interest  and  self-love 
owe  to  conscience.  The  claims  of  the  soul  must  be  satis- 
fied first  if  we  are  to  be  the  children  of  God. 

Was  it  not  Bossuet  who  said,  "  It  is  only  the  great  souls 
who  know  all  the  grandeur  there  is  in  charity?  " 

January  21,  1879. — At  first  religion  holds  the  place  of 
science  and  philosophy ;  afterward  she  has  to  learn  to  conr 
fine  herself  to  her  own  domain — which  is  in  the  inm«' 


330  AMIEUa  JOURNAL, 

depths  of  conscience,  in  the  secret  recesses  of  the  ioul, 
where  life  communes  with  the  Divine  will  and  the  universal 
order.  Piety  is  the  daily  renewing  of  the  ideal,  the  steady- 
ing of  our  inner  being,  agitated,  troubled,  and  embittered 
by  the  common  accidents  of  existence.  Prayer  is  the 
spiritual  balm,  the  precious  cordial  which  restores  to  us 
peace  and  courage.  It  reminds  us  of  pardon  and  of  duty. 
It  says  to  us,  "Thou  art  loved — love;  thou  hast  received — • 
give;  thou  must  die — labor  while  thou  canst;  overcome 
anger  by  kindness;  overcome  evil  with  good.  What  does 
the  blindness  of  opinion  matter,  or  misunderstanding,  or 
ingratitude?  Thou  art  neither  bound  to  follow  the  com- 
mon example  nor  to  succeed.  Fais  ce  que  dois,  advienne 
que  pourra.  Thou  hast  a  witness  in  thy  conscience;  and 
thy  conscience  is  God  speaking  to  thee  I  " 

March  3,  1879. — The  sensible  politician  is  governed  by 
consideration.!  of  social  utility,  the  public  good,  the  greatest 
attainable  good ;  the  political  windbag  starts  from  the  idea 
of  the  rights  of  the  individual — abstract  rights,  of  which 
the  extent  is  affirmed,  not  demonstrated,  for  the  political 
right  of  the  individual  is  precisely  what  is  in  question. 
The  revolutionary  school  always  forgets  that  right  apart 
from  duty  is  a  compass  with  one  leg.  The  notion  of  right 
inflates  the  individual  fills  him  with  thoughts  of  self  and 
of  what  others  owe  him,  while  it  ignores  the  other  side  of 
the  question,  and  extinguishes  his  capacity  for  devoting 
himself  to  a  common  cause.  The  state  becomes  a  shop 
with  self-interest  for  a  principle — or  rather  an  arena,  in 
which  every  combatant  fights  for  his  own  hand  only.  In 
either  case  self  is  the  motive  power. 

Church  and  state  ought  to  provide  two  opposite  careers 
for  the  individual;  in  the  state  he  should  be  called  on  to 
give  proof  of  merit — that  is  to  say,  he  should  earn  his 
rights  by  services  rendered;  in  the  church  his  task  should 
be  to  do  good  while  suppressing  his  own  merits,  by  a  volun- 
tary act  of  humility. 

Extreme  individualism  dissipates  the  moral  substance  of 
the  individual.     It  leads  him  to  subordinate  everything  to 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  331 

himself,  and  to  think  the  world,  society,  the  state,  made 
for  him.  I  am  chilled  by  its  lack  of  gratitude,  of  the 
spirit  of  deference,  of  the  instinct  of  solidarity.  It  is  an 
ideal  without  beauty  and  without  grandeur. 

But,  as  a  consolation,  the  modern  ze?l  for  equality 
makes  a  counterpoise  for  Darwinism,  just  as  one  wolf  holds 
another  wolf  in  check.  Neither,  indeed,  acknowledges 
the  claim  of  duty.  The  fanatic  for  equality  affirms  his 
right  not  to  be  eaten  by  his  neighbor;  the  Darwinian 
states  the  fact  that  the  big  devour  the  little,  and  adds — so 
much  the  better.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  has  a  word 
to  say  of  love,  of  eternity,  of  kindness,  of  piety,  of  volun- 
tary submission,  of  self-surrender. 

All  forces  and  all  principles  are  brought  into  action  at 
once  in  this  world.  The  result  is,  on  the  whole,  good. 
But  the  struggle  itself  is  hateful  because  it  dislocates  truth 
and  shows  us  nothing  but  error  pitted  against  error,  party 
against  party ;  that  is  to  say,  mere  halves  and  fragments  of 
being — monsters  against  monsters.  A  nature  in  love  with 
beauty  cannot  reconcile  itself  to  the  sight;  it  longs  for 
harmony,  for  something  else  than  perpetual  dissonance. 
The  common  condition  of  human  society  must  indeed  be 
accepted;  tumult,  hatred,  fraud,  crime,  the  ferocity  of 
self-interest,  the  tenacity  of  prejudice,  are  perennial;  but 
the  philosopher  sighs  over  it;  his  heart  is  not  in  it;  his 
ambition  is  to  see  human  history  from  a  height;  his  ear  is 
set  to  catch  the  music  of  the  eternal  spheres. 

March  15,  1879. — I  have  been  turr.-ng  over  "Les  his- 
tories de  mon  Parrain  "  by  Stahl,  and  a  few  chapters  of 
"Nos  Fils  et  nos  Filles "  by  Legouve.  These  writers 
press  wit,  grace,  gayety,  and  charm  into  the  service  of 
goodness;  their  desire  is  to  show  that  virtue  is  not  so  dull 
nor  common  sense  so  tiresome  as  people  believe.  They 
are  persuasive  moralists,  captivating  story-tellers;  they 
rouse  the  appetite  for  good.  This  pretty  manner  of  theirs, 
however,  has  its  dangers.  A  moral  wrapped  up  in  sugar 
goes  down  certainly,  but  it  may  be  feared  that  it  only  goes 
down  because  of  its  sugar.     The  Sybarites  of  to-day  will 


332  AMIfSL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

toierate  a  sermon  which  is  delicate  enough  to  flatter  theii 
literary  sensuality;  but  it  is  their  taste  which  is  charmed, 
not  their  conscience  which  is  awakened;  their  principle 
of  conduct  escapes  untouched. 

Amusement,  instruction,  morals,  are  distinct  genres. 
They  may  no  doubt  be  mingled  and  combined,  but  if  we 
wish  to  obtain  direct  and  simple  effects,  we  shall  do  best 
to  keep  them  apart.  The  well-disposed  child,  besides, 
does  not  like  mixtures  which  have  something  of  artifice 
and  deception  in  them.  Duty  claims  obedience;  study 
requires  application;  for  amusement,  nothing  is  wanted 
but  good  temper.  To  convert  obedience  and  application 
into  means  of  amusement  is  to  weaken  the  will  and  the 
intelligence.  These  efforts  to  make  virtue  the  fashion 
are  praiseworthy  enough,  but  if  they  do  honor  to  the 
writers,  on  the  other  hand  they  prove  the  moral  anaemia 
of  society.  When  the  digestion  is  unspoiled,  so  much  per- 
suading is  not  necessary  to  giv^e  it  a  taste  for  bread. 

May  22, 1879.  {Ascension  Day). — Wonderful  and  delicious 
weather.  Soft,  caressing  sunlight — the  air  a  limpid  blue 
— twitterings  of  birds;  even  the  distant  voices  of  the  city 
have  something  young  and  springlike  in  them.  It  is  indeed 
a  new  birth.  The  ascension  of  the  Saviour  of  men  is  sym- 
bolized by  this  expansion,  this  heavenward  yearning  of 
nature.  ...  I  feel  myself  born  again;  all  the  win- 
dows of  the  soul  are  clear.  Forms,  lines,  tints,  reflections, 
sounds,  contrasts,  and  harmonies,  the  general  play  and 
interchange  of  things — it  is  all  enchanting!  The  atmos- 
phere is  steeped  in  joy.     May  is  in  full  beauty. 

In  my  courtyard  the  ivy  is  green  again,  the  chestnut 
tree  is  full  of  leaf,  the  Persian  lilac  beside  the  little  foun- 
tain is  flushed  with  red,  and  just  about  to  flower;  through 
the  wide  openings  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  old  College 
of  Calvin  I  see  the  Sal^ve  above  the  trees  of  St.  Antoine, 
the  Voiron  above  the  hill  of  Cologny;  while  the  three 
flights  of  steps  which,  from  landing  to  landing,  lead 
between  two  high  walls  from  the  Hue  Verdaine  to  the 
terrace  of  the  Tranohees,  recall  to  one's  imagination  some 
old  city  of  the  south,  a  glimpse  o   Perugia  or  of  Malaga. 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  335 

All  the  bells  are  ringing.  It  is  the  hour  of  worship.  A 
historical  and  religious  impression  mingles  with  the  pictur- 
esque, the  musical,  the  poetical  impressions  of  the  scene. 
All  the  peoples  of  Christendom — all  the  churches  scattered 
over  the  globe — are  celebrating  at  this  moment  the  glory 
of  t-he  Crucified. 

And  what  are  those  many  nations  doing  who  have  other 
prophets,  and  honor  the  Divinity  in  other  ways? — the 
Jews,  the  Mussulmans,  the  Buddhists,  the  Vishnuists,  the 
Guebers?  They  have  other  sacred  days,  other  rites,  other 
solemnities,  other  beliefs.  But  all  have  some  religion, 
some  ideal  end  for  life — all  aim  at  raising  man  above  the 
sorrows  and  smallnesses  of  the  present,  and  of  the  indi- 
vidual existence.  All  have  faith  in  something  greater 
than  themselves,  all  pray,  all  bow,  all  adore ;  all  see  beyond 
nature.  Spirit,  and  beyond  evil.  Good.  All  bear  witness 
to  the  Invisible.  Here  we  have  the  link  which  binds  all 
peoples  together.  All  men  are  equally  creatures  of  sorrow 
and  desire,  of  hope  and  fear.  All  long  to  recover  some 
lost  harmony  with  the  great  order  of  things,  and  to  feel 
themselves  approved  and  blessed  by  the  Author  of  the  uni- 
verse. All  know  what  suffering  is,  and  yearn  for  happi- 
ness.    All  know  what  sin  is,  and  feel  the  need  of  pardon. 

Christianity  reduced  to  its  original  simplicity  is  the 
reconciliation  of  the  sinner  with  God,  by  means  of  the  cer- 
tainty that  God  loves  in  spite  of  everything,  and  that  he 
chastises  because  he  loves.  Christianity  furnished  a  new 
motive  and  a  new  strength  for  the  achievement  of  moral 
perfection.  It  made  holiness  attractive  by  giving  to  it  the 
air  of  filial  gratitude. 

June  28,  1879. — Last  lecture  of  the  term  and  of  the 
academic  year.  I  finished  the  exposition  of  modern 
philosophy,  and  wound  up  my  course  with  the  precision  I 
wished.  The  circle  has  returned  upon  itself.  In  order 
to  do  this  I  have  divided  my  hour  into  minutes,  calculated 
my  material,  and  counted  every  stitch  and  point.  This,, 
however,  is  but  a  very  small  part  of  the  professorial  science, 
it  IS  a  more  difficult  matter  to  divide  one's  whole  material 


^34  AMIKL'S  JOURNAL. 

into  a  given  number  of  lectures,  to  determine  the  right 
proportions  of  the  different  parts,  and  the  normal  speed  of 
delivery  to  be  attained.  The  ordinary  lecturer  may  achieve 
a  series  of  complete  seances — the  unity  being  the  seance. 
But  a  scientific  course  ought  to  aim  at  something  more — 
&t  a  general  unity  of  subject  and  of  exposition. 

Has  this  concise,  substantial,  closely-reasoned  kind  of 
work  been  useful  to  my  class?  I  cannot  tell.  Have  my 
students  liked  me  this  year?  I  am  not  sure,  but  I  hope 
so.  It  seems  to  me  they  have.  Only,  if  I  have  pleased 
them,  it  cannot  have  been  in  any  case  more  than  a  succh 
d^estime;  I  have  never  aimed  at  any  oratorical  success. 
My  only  object  is  to  light  up  for  them  a  complicated  and 
difficult  subject.  I  respect  myself  too  much,  and  I  respect 
my  class  too  much,  to  attempt  rhetoric.  My  r61e  is  to 
help  them  to  understand.  Scientific  lecturing  ought  to 
be,  above  all  things,  clear,  instructive,  well  put  together, 
and  convincing.  A  lecturer  has  nothing  to  do  with  pay- 
ing court  to  the  scholars,  or  with  showing  off  the  master; 
his  business  is  one  of  serious  study  and  impersonal  exposi- 
tion. To  yield  anything  on  this  point  would  seem  to  me 
a  piece  of  mean  utilitarianism.  I  hate  everything  that 
savors  of  cajoling  and  coaxing.  All  such  ways  are  mere 
attempts  to  throw  dust  in  men's  eyes,  mere  forms  of 
coquetry  and  stratagem.  A  professor  is  the  priest  of  his 
subject;  he  should  do  the  honors  of  it  gravely  and  with 
dignity. 

September  9, 1879. — "Non-being  is  perfect.  Being,  im- 
perfect:" this  horrible  sophism  becomes  beautiful  only  in 
the  Platonic  system,  because  there  Non-being  is  replaced 
by  the  Idea,  which  is,  and  which  is  divine. 

The  ideal,  the  chimerical,  the  vacant,  should  not  be 
allowed  to  claim  so  great  a  superiority  to  the  Real,  which, 
on  its  side,  has  the  incomparable  advantage  of  existing. 
The  Ideal  kills  enjoyment  and  content  by  disparaging  the 
present  and  actual.  It  is  the  voice  which  says  No,  like 
Mephistopheles.  No,  you  have  not  succeeded;  no,  your 
work   is  i^ot  good ;  no,  you  are  not  happy ;  no,  you  shall 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  335 

not  find  rest — aJl  that  you  see  and  all  that  you  do  is 
insufficient,  insignificant,  overdone,  badly  done,  imper- 
fect. The  thirst  for  the  ideal  is  like  the  goad  of  Siva,  which 
only  quickens  life  to  hasten  death.  Incurable  longing 
that  it  is,  it  lies  at  the  root  both  of  individual  suffering 
and  of  the  progress  of  the  race.  It  destroys  happiness  in ' 
the  name  of  dignity. 

The  only  positive  good  is  order,  the  return  therefore  to 
order  and  to  a  state  of  equilibrium.  Thought  without 
action  is  an  evil,  and  so  is  action  without  thought.  The 
ideal  is  a  poison  unless  it  be  fused  with  the  real,  and  the 
real  becomes  corrupt  without  the  perfume  of  the  ideal. 
Nothing  is  good  singly  wichout  its  complement  and  its 
contrary.  Self-examination  is  dangerous  if  it  encroaches 
upon  self-devotion;  reverie  is  hurtful  when  it  stupefies  the 
will ;  gentleness  is  an  evil  when  it  lessens  strength ;  con- 
templation is  fatal  when  it  destroys  character.  "Too 
much"  and  "too  little  "  sin  equally  against  wisdom.  Ex- 
cess is  one  evil,  apathy  another.  Duty  may  be  defined  as 
energy  tempered  by  moderation;  happiness,  as  inclination 
calmed  and  tempered  by  self-control. 

Just  as  life  is  only  lent  us  for  a  few  years,  but  is  not  in- 
herent in  us,  so  the  good  which  is  in  us  is  not  our  own. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  think  of  one's  self  in  this  detached 
spirit.  It  only  needs  a  little  self-knowledge,  a  little  intui- 
tive preception  of  the  ideal,  a  little  religion.  There  is  even 
much  sweetness  in  this  conception  that  we  are  nothing  of 
ourselves,  and  that  yet  it  is  granted  to  us  to  summon  each 
other  to  life,  joy,  poetry  and  holiness. 

Another  application  of  the  law  of  irony :  Zeno,  a  fatalist 
by  theory,  makes  his  disciples  heroes;  Epicurus,  the  up- 
holder of  liberty,  makes  his  disciples  languid  and  effemin- 
ate. The  ideal  pursued  is  the  decisive  point;  the  stoical 
ideal  is  duty,  whereas  the  Epicureans  make  an  ideal  out  of 
an  interest.  Two  tendencies,  two  systems  of  morals,  ^wo 
worlds.  In  the  same  way  the  Jansenists,  and  before  tbem 
the  great  reformers,  are  for  predestination,  the  Jesuits  for 
fr(»e-\vill — and  yet  the  first  founded    libertv,   the  second 


136  AMIEUS  JOURNAL 

slavery  of  conscience.  What  matters  then  is  not  the 
theoretical  principle ;  it  is  the  secret  tendency,  the  aspira- 
tion, the  aim,  which  is  the  essential  thing. 


At  every  epoch  there  lies,  beyond  the  domain  of  what 
man  knows,  the  domain  of  the  unknown,  in  which  faith 
has  its  dwelling.  Faith  has  no  proofs,  but  only  itself,  to 
offer.  It  is  born  spontaneously  in  certain  commanding 
souls;  it  spreads  its  empire  among  the  rest  by  imitation 
and  contagion.  A  great  faith  is  but  a  great  hope  which 
becomes  certitude  as  we  move  farther  and  farther  from  the 
founder  of  it;  time  and  distance  strengthen  it,  until  at 
last  the  passion  for  knowledge  seizes  upon  it,  questions,  and 
examines  it.  Then  all  which  had  once  made  its  strengtii 
becomes  its  weakness;  the  impossibility  of  verification,  ex- 
altation of  feeling,  distance. 


At  what  age  is  our  view  clearest,  our  eye  truest?  Surely 
in  old  age,  before  the  infirmities  come  which  weaken  or 
embitter.  The  ancients  were  right.  The  old  man  who  is 
at  once  sympathetic  and  disinterested,  necessarily  develops 
the  spirit  of  contemplation,  and  it  is  given  to  the  spirit  of 
contemplation  to  see  things  most  truly,  because  it  alone 
perceives  them  in  their  relative  and  proportional  value. 

January  2,  1880. — A  sense  of  rest,  of  deep  quiet  even. 
Silence  within  and  without.  A  quietly-burning  fire.  A 
sense  of  comfort.  The  portrait  of  my  mother  seems  to 
smile  upon  me.  I  am  not  dazed  or  stupid,  but  only  happy 
in  this  peaceful  morning.  Whatever  may  be  the  charm  of 
emotion,  I  do  not  know  whether  it  equals  the  sweetness  of 
those  hours  of  silent  meditation,  in  which  we  have  a 
glimpse  and  foretaste  of  the  contemplative  joys  of  paradise. 
Desire  and  fear,  sadness  and  care,  are  done  away.  Exist- 
ence is  reduced  to  the  simplest  form,  the  most  ethereal 
mode  of  being,  that  is,  to  pure  self -consciousness.  It  is  a 
state  of  harmony,  without  tension  and  without  disturb- 
ance, the  dominical  state  of  the  soul,  perhaps  the  stat? 
which  awaits  it  beyond  the  grave.     It  is  happiness  as  the 


AMIKUS  JOURNAL.  337 

orientals  understand  it,  the  happiness  of  the  anchorite,  who 
neither  struggles  nor  wishes  any  more,  but  simply  adores 
and  enjoys.  It  is  difficult  to  find  words  in  which  to  ex- 
press this  moral  situation,  for  our  languages  can  only 
render  the  particular  and  localized  vibrations  of  life ;  they 
are  incapable  of  expressing  this  motionless  concentration, 
this  divine  quietude,  this  state  of  the  resting  ocean,  which 
reflects  the  sky,  and  is  master  of  its  own  profundities. 
Things  are  then  re-absorbed  into  their  principles ;  memories 
are  swallowed  up  in  memory;  the  soul  is  only  soul,  and  ia 
no  longer  conscious  of  itself  in  its  individuality  and  sepa- 
rateness.  It  is  something  Avhich  feels  the  universal  life,  a 
sensible  atom  of  the  Divine,  of  God.  It  no  longer  appro- 
priates anything  to  itself,  it  is  conscious  of  no  void.  Only 
the  Yogis  and  Soufis  perhaps  have  known  in  its  profund- 
ity this  humble  and  yet  voluptuous  state,  which  combines 
the  joys  of  being  and  of  non-being,  which  is  neither  reflec- 
tion nor  will,  which  is  above  both  the  moral  existence  and 
the  intellectual  existence,  which  is  the  return  to  unity,  to 
the  pleroma,  the  vision  of  Plotinus  and  of  Proclus — 
Nirvana  in  its  most  attractive  form. 

It  is  clear  that  the  western  nations  in  general,  and 
especially  the  Americans,  know  very  little  of  this  state  of 
feeling.  For  them  life  is  devouring  and  incessant  activity. 
They  are  eager  for  gold,  for  power,  for  dominion;  their 
aim  is  to  crush  men  and  to  enslave  nature.  They  show  an 
obstinate  interest  in  means,  and  have  not  a  thought  for 
the  end.  They  confound  being  with  individual  being,  and 
the  expansion  of  the  self  with  happiness — that  is  to  say, 
they  do  not  live  by  the  soul ;  they  ignore  the  unchangeable 
and  the  eternal ;  they  live  at  the  periphery  of  their  being, 
because  they  are  unable  to  penetrate  to  its  axis.  They  are 
excited,  ardent,  positive,  because  they  are  superficial. 
Why  so  much  effort,  noise,  struggle,  and  greed? — it  is  all 
a  mere  stunning  and  deafening  of  the  self.  When  death 
comes  they  recognize  that  it  is  so — why  not  then  admit  it 
sooner?  Activity  is  only  beautiful  when  it  is  holy — that 
is  to  say,  when  it  is  snent  in  the  service  of  that  which 
passeth  not  awav 


338  4  MIEUf^  JO  URN  A  L. 

February  6, 1880. — A  feeling  article  by  Edmond  Scherei 
on  the  death  of  Bersot,  the  director  of  the  "  Ecole  Nor- 
male,"  a  philosopher  who  bore  like  a  stoic  a  terrible 
disease,  and  who  labored  to  the  last  without  a  complaint. 

.  .  .  I  have  just  read  the  four  orations  delivered  over 
his  grave.  They  have  brought  the  tears  to  my  eyes.  In 
the  last  days  of  this  brave  man  everything  was  manly, 
noble,  moral,  and  spiritual.  Each  of  the  speakers  paid 
homage  to  the  character,  the  devotion,  the  constancy,  and 
the  intellectual  elevation  of  the  dead.  "  Let  us  learn  from 
him  how  to  live  and  how  to  die."  The  whole  funeral  cere- 
mony had  an  antique  dignity. 

February  7,  1880. — Hoar-frost  and  fog,  but  the  general 
aspect  is  bright  and  fairylike,  and  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  gloom  in  Paris  and  London,  of  which  the  news- 
papers tell  us. 

This  silvery  landscape  has  a  dreamy  grace,  a  fanciful 
charm,  which  are  unknown  both  to  the  countries  of  the  sun 
and  to  those  of  coal-smoke.  The  trees  seem  to  belong  to 
another  creation,  in  which  white  has  taken  the  place  of 
green.  As  one  gazes  at  these  alleys,  these  clumps,  these 
groves  and  arcades,  these  lace-like  garlands  and  festoons, 
one  feels  no  wish  for  anything  else;  their  beauty  is  original 
and  self-sufficing,  all  the  more  because  the  ground  pow- 
dered with  snow,  the  sky  dimmed  with  mist,  and  the 
smooth  soft  distances,  combine  to  form  a  general  scale  of 
color,  and  a  harmonious  whole,  which  charms  the  eye.  No 
harshness  anywhere — all  is  velvet.  My  enchantment 
beguiled  me  out  both  before  and  after  dinner.  The  im- 
pression is  that  of  a  fete,  and  the  subdued  tints  are,  or  seem' 
to  be,  a  mere  coquetry  of  winter  which  has  set  itself  to 
paint  something  without  sunshine,  and  yet  to  charm  the 
spectator. 

February  9,  1880. — Life  rushes  on — so  much  the  worse 
for  the  weak  and  the  stragglers.  As  soon  as  a  man's  tendo 
AchiUis  gives  way  he  finds  himself  trampled  under  foot 
by  the  young,  the  eager,  the  voracious.  "  Vae  victis, 
vae  dehilibus!"  yells  the  crowd,  which  in  its  turn  is  storm- 


A  MIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L.  339 

ing  the  goods  of  this  world.  Every  man  is  always  in  some 
other  man's  way,  since,  however  small  he  may  make  him- 
self, he  still  occupies  some  space,  and  however  little  he  may 
envy  or  possess,  he  is  still  sure  to  be  envied  and  his  goods 
coveted  by  some  one  else.  Mean  world! — peopled  by  a 
mean  race!  To  console  ourselves  we  must  think  of  the 
exceptions — of  the  noble  and  generous  souls.  There  are 
such.  What  do  the  rest  matter!  The  traveler  crossing 
the  desert  feels  himself  surrounded  by  creatures  thirsting 
for  his  blood;  by  day  vultures  fly  about  his  head;  by  night 
scorpions  creep  into  his  tent,  jackals  prowl  around  his 
camp-fire,  mosquitoes  prick  and  torture  him  with  their 
greedy  sting;  everywhere  menace,  enmity,  ferocity.  But 
far  beyond  the  horizon,  and  the  barren  sands  peopled  by 
these  hostile  hordes,  the  wayfarer  pictures  to  himself  a  few 
loved  faces  and  kind  looks,  a  few  true  hearts  which  follow 
him  in  their  dreams — and  smiles.  When  all  is  said,  indeed, 
we  defend  ourselves  a  greater  or  lesser  number  of  years, 
but  we  are  always  conquered  and  devoured  in  the  end; 
there  is  no  escaping  the  grave  and  its  worm.  Destruction 
is  our  destiny,  and  oblivion  our  portion.     ...  < 

How  near  is  the  great  gulf!  My  skiff  is  thin  as  a  nut- 
shell, or  even  more  fragile  still.  Let  the  leak  but  widen  a 
little  and  all  is  over  for  the  navigator.  A  mere  nothing 
separates  me  from  idiocy,  from  madness,  from  death.  The 
slightest  breach  is  enough  to  endanger  all  this  frail,  ingeni- 
ous edifice,  which  calls  itself  my  being  and  my  life. 

Not  even  the  dragonfly  symbol  is  enough  to  express  its 
frailty;  the  soap-bubble  is  the  best  poetical  translation  of. 
all  this  illusory  magnificence,  this  fugutive  apparition  of 
the  tiny  self,  which  is  we,  and  we  it. 

.  .  .  A  miserable  night  enough.  Awakened  three 
or  four  times  by  my  bronchitis.  Sadness — restlessness. 
One  of  these  winter  nights,  possibly,  suffocation  will  come. 
I  realize  that  it  would  be  well  to  keep  myself  ready,  to  put 
everything  in  order.  ...  To  begin  with,  let  me  wipe 
out  all  personal  grievances  and  bitternesses;  forgive  all, 
judge  no  one;  in  enmity  and  ill-will,  see  only  misunder- 


340  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

standing.  "As  much  as  lieth  in  yon,  be  at  peace  with  all 
men."  On  the  bed  of  death  the  soul  should  have  no  eyes 
but  for  eternal  things.  All  the  littlenesses  of  life  disappear. 
The  fight  is  over.  There  should  be  nothing  left  now  but 
•emembrance  of  past  blessings — adoration  of  the  ways  of 
God.  Our  natural  instinct  leads  us  back  to  Christian 
humility  and  pity.  '•  Father,  forgive  us  our  trespasses,  as 
we  forgive  them  who  trespass  against  us." 

Prepare  thyself  as  though  the  coming  Easter  were  thy 
last,  for  thy  days  henceforward  shall  be  few  and  evil. 

February  11,  1880. — Victor  de  Laprade*  has  elevation, 
grandeur,  nobility,  and  harmony.  What  is  it,  then,  that 
he  lacks?  Ease,  and  perhaps  humor.  Hence  the  monoto- 
nous solemnity,  the  excess  of  emphasis,  the  over-intensity, 
the  inspired  air,  the  statue-like  gait,  which  annoy  one  in 
him.  His  is  a  muse  which  never  lays  aside  the  cothurnus, 
and  a  royalty  which  never  puts  off  its  crown,  even  in  sleep. 
The  total  absence  in  him  of  playfulness,  simplicity, 
familiarity,  is  a  great  defect.  De  Laprade  is  to  the  ancients 
as  the  French  tragedy  is  to  that  of  Euripides,  or  as  the  wig 
of  Louis  XIV.  to  the  locks  of  Apollo.  His  majestic  airs 
are  wearisome  and  factitious.  If  there  is  not  exactly  affec- 
tation in  them,  there  is  at  least  a  kind  of  theatrical  and 
sacerdotal  posing,  a  sort  of  professional  attitudinizing. 
Truth  is  not  as  fine  as  this,  but  it  is  more  living,  more 
pathetic,  more  varied.  Marble  images  are  cold.  Was  it 
not  Musset  who  said,  "  If  De  Laprade  is  a  poet,  then  I  am 
not  one?" 

February  27,  1880. — I  have  finished  translating  twelve 
or  fourteen  little  poems  by  Petofi.  They  have  a  strange 
kind  of  savor.  There  is  something  of  the  Steppe,  of  the 
East,  of  Mazeppa,  of  madness,  in  these  songs,  which  seem 

*  Victor  de  Laprade,  born  1812,  first  a  disciple  and  imitator  of 
Edgar  Quinet.  then  the  friend  of  Laniartine,  Laniennais,  George 
Sand,  Victor  Hugo;  admitted  to  the  Academy  in  1857  in  succession 
to  Alfred  de  Musset.  He  wrote  "  Parfums  de  Madeleine,"  1889; 
"  Odes  et  Poemes,"  1843;  "  Poemes  Evangeliques,"  1852;  "  Idylles 
Heroiques,"  1858,  etc-  etc 


AMIEVS  JOURNAL.  341 

to  go  to  the  beat  of  a  riding-whip.  What  force  and  pas- 
sion, what  savage  brilliancy,  what  wild  and  grandiose 
images,  there  are  in  them !  One  feels  that  the  Magyar  is  a 
kind  of  Centaur,  and  that  he  is  only  Christian  and  Euro- 
pean by  accident.  The  Hun  in  him  tends  toward  the 
Arab. 

March  20,  1880. — I  have  been  reading  "La  Banniere 
Bleue " — a  history  of  the  world  at  the  time  of  Genghis 
Khan,  under  the  form  of  memoirs.  It  is  a  Turk,  Ouigour, 
who  tells  the  story.  He  shows  us  civilization  from  the 
wrong  side,  or  the  other  side,  and  the  Asiatic  nomads 
appear  as  the  scavengers  of  its  corruptions. 

Genghis  proclaimed  himself  the  scourge  of  God,  and  he 
did  in  fact  realize  the  vastest  empire  known  to  history, 
stretching  from  the  Blue  Sea  to  the  Baltic,  and  from  the 
vast  plains  of  Siberia  to  the  banks  of  the  sacred  Ganges. 
The  most  solid  empires  of  the  ancient  world  were  over- 
thrown by  the  tramp  of  his  horsemen  and  the  shafts  of  his 
archers.  From  the  tumult  into  which  he  threw  the 
western  continent  there  issued  certain  vast  results:  the 
fall  of  the  Byzantine  empire,  involving  the  Renaissance, 
the  voyages  of  discovery  in  Asia,  undertaken  from  both 
sides  of  the  globe — that  is  to  say,  Gama  and  Columbus; 
the  formation  of  the  Turkish  empire;  and  the  preparation 
of  the  Russian  empire.  This  tremendous  hurricane, 
starting  from  the  high  Asiatic  tablelands,  felled  the  decay- 
ing oaks  and  worm-eaten  buildings  of  the  whole  ancient 
world.  The  descent  of  the  yellow,  flat-nosed  Mongols  upon 
Europe  is  a  historical  cyclone  which  devastated  and  puri- 
fied our  thirteenth  century,  and  broke,  at  the  two  ends  of 
the  known  world,  through  two  great  Chinese  walls — that 
■which  protected  the  ancient  empire  of  the  Center,  and 
that  which  made  a  barrier  of  ignorance  and  superstition 
round  the  little  world  of  Christendom.  Attila,  Genghis, 
Tamerlane,  ought  to  range  in  the  memory  of  men  with 
Caesar,  Charlemagne,  and  Napoleon.  They  roused  whole 
peoples  into  action,  and  stirred  the  depths  of  human  life, 
they  powerfullv  affected  ethnography,  they  let  loose  rivera 


342  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

of  blood,  and  renewed  the  face  of  things.  The  Quakers 
will  not  see  that  there  is  a  law  of  tempests  in  history  as  in 
nature.  The  revilers  of  war  are  like  the  revilers  of  thun- 
der, storms,  and  volcanoes;  they  know  not  what  they  do. 
Civilization  tends  to  corrupt  men,  as  large  towns  tend  to 
vitiate  the  air. 

"  Nos  patimur  longse  pacis  mala." 

Catastrophes  bring  about  a  violent  restoration  of  equili- 
brium; they  put  the  world  brutally  to  rights.  Evil  chas- 
tises itself,  and  the  tendency  to  ruin  in  human  things  sup- 
plies the  place  of  the  regulator  who  has  not  yet  been  dis- 
covered. No  civilization  can  bear  more  than  a  certain 
proportion  of  abuses,  injustice,  corruption,  shame,  and 
crime.  When  this  proportion  has  been  reached,  tlie 
boiler  bursts,  the  palace  falls,  the  scaffolding  breaks  down ; 
institutions,  cities,  states,  empires,  sink  into  ruin.  The 
evil  contained  in  an  organism  is  a  virus  which  preys  npon 
it,  and  if  it  is  not  eliminated  ends  by  destroying  it.  And 
as  nothing  is  perfect,  nothing  can  escape  death. 

May  19,  1880. — Inadaptihihty,  due  either  to  mysticism 
or  stiffness,  delicacy  or  disdain,  is  the  misfortune  or  at  all 
events  the  characteristic  of  my  life.  I  have  not  been  able 
to  fit  myself  to  anything,  to  content  myself  with  anything. 
I  have  never  had  the  quantum  of  illusion  necessary  for  risk- 
ing the  irreparable.  I  have  made  use  of  the  ideal  itself  to 
keep  me  from  any  kind  of  bondage.  It  was  thus  with 
marriage:  only  perfection  would  have  satisfied  me;  and, 
on   the  other  hand,    I   was    not   worthy    of    perfection. 

.  .  .  So  that,  finding  no  satisfaction  in  things,  I 
tried  to  extirpate  desire,  by  which  things  enslave  us. 
Independence  has  been  my  refuge;  detachment  my  strong- 
hold. I  have  lived  the  impersonal  life — in  the  world,  yet 
not  in  it,  thinking  much,  desiring  nothing.  It  is  a  state 
of  mind  which  corresponds  with  what  in  women  is  called  a 
broken  heart;  and  it  is  in  fact  like  it,  since  the  character- 
istic common  to  both  is  despair.  When  one  knows  that  one 
will  never  possess  what  one  could  have  loved,  and  that  one 


AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL.  343 

can  be  content  with  nothing  less,  one  has,  so  to  speak, 
left  the  world,  one  has  cut  the  golden  hair,  parted  with 
all  that  makes  human  life — that  is  to  say,  illusion — the 
incessant  effort  toward  an  apparently  attainable  end. 

May  31,  1880. — Let  us  not  be  over-ingenious.  There  is 
no  help  to  be  got  out  of  subtleties.  Besides,  one  must 
live.  It  is  best  and  simplest  not  to  quarrel  with  any  illu- 
,sion,  and  to  accept  the  inevitable  good-temperedly.  Plunged 
as  we  are  in  human  existence,  we  must  take  it  as  it  comes, 
not  too  bitterly,  nor  too  tragically,  without  horror  and 
without  sarcasm,  without  misplaced  petulance  or  a  too 
exacting  expectation;  cheerfulness,  serenity,  and  patience, 
these  are  best — let  us  aim  at  these.  Our  business  is  to 
treat  life  as  the  grandfather  treats  his  granddaughter,  or 
the  grandmother  her  grandson;  to  enter  into  the  pretenses 
of  childhood  and  the  fictions  of  youth,  even  when  we  our- 
selves have  long  passed  beyond  them.  It  is  probable  that 
God  himself  looks  kindly  upon  the  illusions  of  the  human 
race,  so  long  as  they  are  innocent.  There  is  nothing  evil 
but  sin — that  is,  egotism  and  revolt.  And  as  for  error, 
man  changes  his  errors  frequently,  but  error  of  some  sort 
is  always  with  him.  Travel  as  one  may,  one  is  alwaya 
somewhere,  and  one's  mind  rests  on  some  point  of  truth, 
as  one's  feet  rest  upon  some  point  of  the  globe. 

Society  alone  represents  a  more  or  less  complete  unity. 
The  individual  must  content  himself  with  being  a  stona 
in  the  building,  a  wheel  in  the  immense  machine,  s  word 
in  the  poem.  He  is  a  part  of  the  family,  of  the  state,  of 
humanity,  of  all  the  special  frgaments  formed  by  human 
interests,  beliefs,  aspirations,  and  labors.  The  loftiest 
souls  are  those  who  are  conscious  of  the  unj-t^grsal  sym- 
phony, and  who  give  their  full  and  willing  collaboration  to 
this  vast  and  complicated  concert  Avhich  we  call  civilization. 

In  principle  ,the  mind  is  capable  of  suppre><sing  all  the 
limits  which  it  discovers  in  itself,  limits  of  language, 
nationality,  religion,  race,  or  epoch.  But  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  more  the  mind  spiritualizes  and  generalizes 
itself,   the  less  hold  it  has  on    other  minds,    which  no 


344  AMIEUS  JOVRNAL. 

longer  understand  it  or  know  what  to  do  with  it.     Inflrj 
ence  belongs  to  men  of  action,  and  for  purposes  of  actiou 
nothing  is  more  useful  than  narrowness  of  thought  com- 
bined with  energy  of  will. 

The  forms  of  dreamland  are  gigantic,  those  of  action  are 
small  and  dwarfed.  To  the  minds  impriso7ied  in  things, 
belong  success,  fame,  profit;  a  great  deal  no  doubt;  but 
they  know  nothing  of  the  pleasures  of  liberty  or  the  joy 
of  penetrating  the  infinite.  However,  I  do  not  mean  to 
put  one  class  before  another;  for  every  man  is  happy 
according  to  his  nature.  History  is  made  by  combatants 
and  specialists ;  only  it  is  perhaps  not  a  bad  thing  that  in 
the  midst  of  the  devouring  activities  of  the  western  world, 
there  should  be  a  few  Brahmanizing  souls. 

.  .  .  This  soliloquy  means — what?  That  reverie 
turns  upon  itself  as  dreams  do;  that  impressions  added 
together  do  not  always  produce  a  fair  judgment;  that  a 
private  journal  is  like  a  good  king,  and  permits  repetitions, 
outpourings,  complaint.  .  .  .  These  unseen  effusions 
are  the  conversation  of  thought  with  itself  the  arpeggios 
involuntary  but  not  unconscious,  of  that  ^olian  harp  we 
bear  within  us.  Its  vibrations  compose  no  piece,  exhaust 
no  theme,  achieve  no  melody,  carry  out  no  programme, 
but  they  express  the  innermost  life  of  man. 

June  1,  1880. — Stendhal's  "La  Chartreuse  de  Parme." 
A  remarkable  book.  It  is  even  typical,  the  first  of  a 
class.  Stendhal  opens  the  series  of  naturalist  novels, 
which  suppress  the  intervention  of  the  moral  sense,  and 
scoff  at  the  claim  of  free-will.  Individuals  are  irrespon- 
sible ;  they  are  governed  by  their  passions,  and  the  play  of 
human  passions  is  the  observer's  joy,  the  artist's  material. 
Stendhal  is  a  novelist  after  Taine's  heart,  a  faithful 
painter  who  is  neither  touched  nor  angry,  and  whom  every- 
thing amuses — the  knave  and  the  adventuress  as  well  as 
honest  men  and  women,  but  who  has  neither  faith,  nor 
preference,  nor  ideal.  In  him  literature  is  subordinated  to 
natural  history,  to  science.  It  no  longer  forms  part  of  the 
humanities^  it  no  longer  gives  man  the  honor  of  a  separate 


i 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  345 

rank.  It  classes  him  with  the  ant,  the  beaver,  and  the 
monkey.  And  this  moral  indiJfference  to  morality  leads 
direct  to  immorality. 

The  vice  of  the  whole  school  is  cynicism,  contempt  for 
man,  whom  they  degrade  to  the  level  of  the  brute;  it  is 
the  worship  of  strength,  disregard  of  the  soul,  a  want  of 
generosity,  of  reverence,  of  nobility,  which  shows  itself  in 
spite  of  all  protestations  to  the  contrary ;  in  a  word,  it  is 
inhumanity.  No  man  can  be  a  naturalist  with  impunity: 
he  will  be  coarse  even  with  the  most  refined  culture.  A 
free  mind  is  a  great  thing  no  doubt,  but  loftiness  of  heart, 
belief  in  goodness,  capacity  for  enthusiasm  and  devotion, 
the  thirst  after  perfection  and  holiness,  are  greater  things 
still. 

June  7,  1880. — I  am  reading  Madame  Necker  de 
Saussure*  again.  "L'Education  progressive"  is  an  ad- 
mirable book.  What  moderation  and  fairness  of  view, 
what  reasonableness  and  dignity  of  manner !  Everything 
in  it  is  of  high  quality — observation,  thought,  and  style. 
The  reconciliation  of  science  with  the  ideal,  of  philosophy 
with  religion,  of  psychology  with  morals,  which  the  book 
attempts,  is  sound  and  beneficent.  It  is  a  fine  book — a 
classic — and  Geneva  maybe  proud  of  a  piece  of  work  which 
shows  such  high  cultivation  and  so  much  solid  wisdom. 
Here  we  have  the  true  Grenevese  literature,  the  central 
tradition  of  the  country. 

Later. — I  have  finished  the  third  volume  of  Madame 
Necker.  The  elevation  and  delicacy,  the  sense  and  serious- 
ness, the  beauty  and  perfection  of  the  whole  are  astonish- 

*  Madame  Necker  de  Saussure  was  the  daughter  of  the  famous 
geologist,  De  Saussure;  she  married  a  nephew  of  Jacques  Necker, 
and  was  therefore  cousin  by  marriage  of  Madame  de  Stael.  She  is 
often  supposed  to  be  the  original  of  Madame  de  Cerlebe  in  ' '  Del- 
phine,"  and  the  Notice  sur  le  Caractere  et  les  Merits  de  Mdme.  de 
Stael,  prefixed  to  the  authoritative  edition  of  Madame  de  Stael's 
collected  works,  is  by  her.  Philanthropy  and  education  were  her 
two  main  interests,  but  she  had  also  a  very  large  amount  of  general 
literary  cultivation,  as  was  proved  by  her  translation  of  Schlegel's 
"  Lectures  on  Dramatic  Literature." 


346  A  MIEL'S  JO  URNAL. 

ing.  A  few  harshnesses  or  inaccuracies  of  language  do  no; 
matter.  I  feel  for  the  author  a  respect  mingled  with 
emotion.  How  rare  it  is  to  find  a  book  in  which  everyr 
thing  is  sincere  and  everything  is  true! 

June  26,  1880. — Democracy  exists;  it  is  mere  loss  of 
time  to  dwell  upon  its  absurdities  and  defects.  Every 
regime  has  its  weaknesses,  and  this  regime  is  a  lesser  evil 
than  others.  On  things  its  effect  is  unfavorable,  but  on 
the  other  hand  men  profit  by  it,  for  it  develops  the  indi- 
vidual by  obliging  every  one  to  take  interest  in  a  multitude 
of  questions.  It  makes  bad  work,  but  it  produces  citizens. 
This  is  its  excuse,  and  a  more  than  tolerable  one;  in  the 
eyes  of  the  philanthropist,  indeed,  it  is  a  serious  title  to 
respect,  for,  after  all,  social  institutions  are  made  for  man, 
and  not  vice  versd. 

June  27, 1880. — I  paid  a  visit  to  my  friends ,  and  we 

resumed  the  conversation  of  yesterday.  We  talked  of  the 
ills  which  threaten  democracy  and  which  are  derived  from 
the  legal  fiction  at  the  root  of  it.  Surely  the  remedy 
consists  in  insisting  everywhere  upon  the  truth  which 
democracy  systematically  forgets,  and  which  is  its  proper 
makeweight— -on  the  inequalities  of  talent,  of  virtue,  and 
merit,  and  on  the  respect  due  to  age,  to  capacity,  to  serv- 
vices  rendered.  Juvenile  arrogance  and  jealous  ingratitude 
must  be  resisted  all  the  more  strenuously  because  social 
forms  are  in  their  favor;  and  when  the  institutions  of  a 
country  lay  stress  only  on  the  rights  of  the  individual,  it  is 
the  business  of  the  citizen  to  lay  all  the  more  stress  on 
duty.  There  must  be  a  constant  effort  to  correct  the  pre- 
vailing tendency  of  things.  All  this,  it  is  true,  is  nothing 
but  palliative,  but  in  human  society  one  cannot  hope  for 
more. 

Later. — Alfred  de  Vigny  is  a  sympathetic  writer, 
with  a  meditative  turn  of  thought,  a  strong  and  supple 
talent.  He  possesses  elevation,  independence,  seriousness, 
originality,  boldness  and  grace ;  he  has  something  of  every- 
thing. He  paints,  describes,  and  judges  well;  he  thinks, 
and  has  the  courage  of  his  opinions.     His  defect  lies  in  an 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.        _  347 

«xcess  of  •  self-respect,  yi  a  British  pride  and  reserve  which 
give  him  a  horror  of  familiarity  and  a  terror  of  letting  him- 
self go.  This  tendency  has  naturally  injured  his  popularity 
as  a  writer  with  a  public  whom  he  holds  at  arm's  length 
as  one  might  a  troublesome  crowd.  The  French  race  has 
never  cared  much  about  the  inviolability  of  personal  con- 
science ;  it  does  not  like  stoics  shut  up  in  their  own  dignity 
as  in  a  tower,  and  recognizing  no  master  but  God,  duty  or 
faith.  Such  strictness  annoys  and  irritates  it;  it  is  merely 
piqued  and  made  impatient  by  anything  solemn.  It  repu- 
diated Protestantism  for  this  very  reason,  and  in  all  crises 
it  has  crushed  those  who  have  not  yielded  to  the  passionate 
current  of  opinion. 

July  1,  1880.  {Three  o^clock). — The  temperature  is 
oppressive ;  I  ought  to  be  looking  over  my  notes,  and  think- 
ing of  to-morrow's  examinations.  Inward  distaste — 
emptiness — discontent.  Is  it  trouble  of  conscience,  or  sor- 
row of  heart?  or  the  soul  preying  upon  itself?  or  merely  .a 
sense  of  strength  decaying  and  time  running  to  waste?  Is 
sadness — or  regret — or  fear — at  the  root  of  it?  I  do  not 
know;  but  this  dull  sense  of  misery  has  danger  in  it;  it 
leads  to  rash  efforts  and  mad  decisions.  Oh,  for  escape 
from  self,  for  something  to  stifle  the  importunate  voice  of 
want  and  yearning!  Discontent  is  the  father  of  tempta- 
tion. How  can  we  gorge  the  invisible  serpent  hidden  at 
the  bottom  of  our  well — gorge  it  so  that  it  may  sleep? 

At  the  heart  of  all  this  rage  and  vain  rebellion  there  lies 
• — what?  Aspiration,  yearning!  We  are  athirst  for  the 
infinite — for  love — for  I  know  not  what.  It  is  the  instinct 
of  hapniness,  which,  like  some  wild  animal,  is  restless  for 
its  prey.     It  is  God  calling — God  avenging  himself. 

July  4,  1880.  {Sunday,  half -past  eight  in  the  morning). 
— The  sun  has  come  out  after  heavy  rain.  May  one  take 
it  as  an  omen  on  this  solemn  day?  The  great  voice  of 
Clemence  has  just  been  sounding  in  our  ears.  The  bell's 
deep  vibrations  went  to  my  heart.  For  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
the  pathetic  appeal  went  on — "Geneva,  Geneva,  remember! 
I  am  called  Clemence — I   am  the  voice  of  church  and  of 


348  AMIEV8  JOURNAL. 

country.  People  of  Geneva,  serv^  God  and  be  at  peace 
together."* 

Seven  o^clocJc  in  the  evening. — CUmence  has  been  ringing 
again,  during  the  last  half-hour  of  the  scrutin.  Now  that 
she  has  stopped,  the  silence  has  a  terrible  seriousness,  like 
that  which  weighs  upon  a  crowd  when  it  is  waiting  for  the 
return  of  the  judge  and  the  delivery  of  the  death  sentence. 
The  fate  of  the  Geuevese  church  and  country  is  now  in 
the  voting  box. 

Eleven  o^lock  in  the  evening. — Victory  along  the  whole 
line.     The  Ayes  have  carried  little  more  than  two-sevenths 

of  the  vote.     At  my  friend 's  house  I  found  them  all 

full  of  excitement,  gratitude,  and  joy. 

July  0,  1880. — There  are  some  words  which  have  still  a 
magical  virtue  with  the  mass  of  the  people:  those  of  State, 
Republic,  Country,  Nation,  Flag,  and  even,  I  think. 
Church.  Our  skeptical  and  mocking  culture  knows 
nothing  of  the  emotion,  the  exaltation,  the  delirium,  which 
these  words  awaken  in  simple  people.  The  biases  of  the 
world  have  no  idea  how  the  popular  mind  vibrates  to  these 
appeals,  by  which  they  themselves  are  untouched.  It  is 
their  punishment;  it  is  also  their  infirmity.  Their  temper 
is  satirical  and  separatist;  they  live  in  isolation  and 
sterility. 

I  feel  again  what  I  felt  at  the  time  of  the  Rousseau  cen- 
tenary ;  my  feeling  and  imagination  are  chilled  and  repelled 
by  those  Pharisaical  people  who  think  themselves  too  good 
to  associate  with  the  crowd. 

At  the  same  time,  I  suffer  from  an  inward  contradiction, 
from  a  two-fold,  instinctive  repugnance — an  aesthetic 
repugnance  toward  vulgarity  of  every  kind,  a  moral  repug- 
nance toward  barrenness  and  coldness  of  heart. 

So  that  personally  I  am  only  attracted  by  the  individuals 
of  cultivation   and  eminence,   while  on  the  other  hand 

*A  law  to  bring  about  separation  between  Churcli  and  State, 
adopted  by  the  Great  Council,  was  on  this  day  submitted  to  the  vote 
ot  the  Qenevese  people.  It  was  rejected  by  a  large  majority  (9,30(» 
against  4,044).— [S.] 


AM1EU8  JOURNAL  349 

nothing  is  sweeter  to  me  than  to  feel  myself  vibrating  in 
sympathy  with  the  national  spirit,  with  the  feeling  of  the 
masses.  I  only  care  for  the  two  extremes,  and  it  is  this 
which  separates  me  from  each  of  them. 

Our  everyday  life,  split  up  as  it  is  into  clashing  parties 
and  opposed  opinions,  and  harassed  by  perpetual  disorder 
and  discussion,  is  painful  and  almost  hateful  to  me.  A 
thousand  things  irritate  and  provoke  me.  But  perhaps  it 
would  be  the  same  elsewhere.  Very  likely  it  is  the  inevi- 
table way  of  the  world  which  displeases  me — the  sight  of 
what  succeeds,  of  what  men  approve  or  blame,  of  what 
they  excuse  or  accuse.  I  need  to  admire,  to  feel  myself  in 
sympathy  and  in  harmony  with  my  neighbor,  with  the 
march  of  things,  and  the  tendencies  of  those  arouad  me, 
and  almost  always  I  have  had  to  give  up  the  hope  of  it.  I 
take  refuge  in  retreat,  to  avoid  discord.  But  solitude  is 
only  a  pis-aller. 

July  6,  1880. -^Magnificent  weather.  The  college  prize- 
day.*  Toward  evening  I  went  with  our  three  ladies  to 
the  plain  of  Plainpalais.  There  was  an  immense  crowd, 
and  I  was  struck  with  the  bright  look  of  the  faces.  The 
festival  wound  up  with  the  traditional  fireworks,  under  a 
calm  and  starry  sky.  Here  we  have  the  republic  indeed, 
I  thought  as  I  came  in.  For  a  whole  week  this  people  has 
been  out-of-doors,  camping,  like  the  Athenians  on  the 
Agora.  Since  Wednesday  lectures  and  public  meetings 
have  followed  one  another  without  intermission ;  at  home 
there  are  pamphlets  and  the  newspapers  to  be  read;  while 
epeech-making  goes  on  at  the  clubs.  On  Sunday,  plebiscite; 
Monday,  public  procession,  service  at  St.  Pierre,  speeches 
on  the  Molard,  festival  for  the  adults.  Tuesday,  the  col- 
lege f6te-day.  Wednesday,  the  f^te-day  of  the  primary 
schools. 

Geneva  is  a  caldron  always  at  boiling-point,  a  furnace 
of  which  the  fires  are  never  extinguish  3d.  Vulcan  had 
more  than  one  forge,  and  Geneva  is  certainly  one  of  those 

*  The  prize-giving  at  the  (College  of  Geneva  is  made  the  occasion 
of  a  national  festival. 


350  A  MIED8  JO  URN  A  L. 

world-anvils  on  which  the  greatest  number  of  projects 
have  been  hammered  out.  When  one  thinks  that  the 
martyrs  of  all  causes  have  been  at  work  here,  the  mystery 
is  explained  a  little;  but  the  truest  explanation  is  that 
Geneva — republican,  protestant,  democratic,  learned,  and 
enterprising  Geneva — has  for  centuries  depended  on  her- 
self alone  for  the  solution  of  her  own  difficulties.  Since 
the  Reformation  she  has  been  always  on  the  alert,  march- 
ing with  a  lantern  in  her  left  hand  and  a  sword  in  her 
right.  It  pleases  me  to  see  that  she  has  not  yet  become  a 
mere  copy  of  anything,  and  that  she  is  still  capable  of 
deciding  for  herself.  Those  who  say  to  her,  "  Do  as  they 
do  at  New  York,  at  Paris,  at  Rome,  at  Berlin,"  are  still  in 
the  minority.  The  doctrinaires  who  would  split  her  up 
and  destroy  her  unity  waste  their  breath  upon  her.  She 
divines  the  snare  laid  for  her  and  turns  away.  I  like  this 
proof  of  vitality.  Only  that  which  is  original  has  a  suffi- 
cient reason  for  existence.  A  country  in  which  the  word 
of  command  comes  from  elsewhere  is  nothing  more  than 
a  province.  This  is  what  our  Jacobins  and  our  Ultramon- 
tanes  never  will  recognize.  Neither  of  them  understand 
the  meaning  of  self-government,  and  neither  of  them  have 
any  idea  of  the  dignity  of  a  historical  state  and  an  inde- 
pendent people. 

Our  small  nationalities  are  ruined  by  the  hollow  cosmo- 
politan formulae  which  have  an  equally  disastrous  effect 
upon  art  and  letters.  The  modern  isms  are  so  many  acids 
which  dissolve  everything  living  and  concrete.  No  one 
achieves  a  masterpiece,  nor  even  a  decent  piece  of  work,  by 
the  help  of  realism,  liberalism,  or  romanticism.  Separa- 
tism has  even  less  virtue  than  any  of  the  other  isms,  for  it 
is  the  abstraction  of  a  negation,  the  shadow  of  a  shadow. 
The  various  isms  of  the  present  are  not  fruitful  principles: 
they  are  hardly  even  explanatory  formulas.  They  are 
rather  names  of  disease,  for  they  express  some  element  in 
excess,  some  dangerous  and  abusive  exaggeration.  Exam- 
ples: empiricism,  idealism,  radicalism.  What  is  best 
among  things  and  most  perfect  among  beings  slips  through 


aMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  35L 

these  categories.  The  man  who  is  perfectly  well  is  neither 
sanguineous — [to  use  the  old  medical  term] — nor  bilious 
nor  nervous.  A  normal  republic  contains  opposing  parties 
and  points  of  view,  but  it  contains  them,  as  it  were,  in  a 
state  of  chemical  combination.  All  the  colors  are  con- 
tained in  a  ray  of  light,  while  red  alone  does  not  contain  a 
sixth  part  of  the  perfect  ray. 

July  8,  1880. — It  is  thirty  years  since  I  read  Waagen's 

book  on  "Museums,"  which  my  friend is  now  reading. 

It  was  in  1843  that  I  was  wild  for  pictures ;  in  1845  that 
I  was  studying  Krause's  philosophy;  in  1850 that  I  became 

professor  of  sesthetics. may  be  the  same  age  as  I  am; 

it  is  none  the  less  true  that  when  a  particular  stage  has 
become  to  me  a  matter  of  history,  he  is  just  arriving  at  it. 
This  impression  of  distance  and  remoteness  is  a  strange 
one.  I  begin  to  realize  that  my  memory  is  a  great  cata 
comb,  and  that  below  my  actual  standing-ground  there  is 
layer  after  layer  of  historical  ashes. 

Is  the  life  of  mind  something  like  that  of  great  trees  of 
immemorial  growth?  Is  the  living  layer  of  consciousness 
super-imposed  upon  hundreds  of  dead  layers?  Deadf  No 
doubt  this  is  too  much  to  say,  but  still,  when  memory  is 
slack  the  past  becomes  almost  as  though  it  had  never  been. 
To  remember  that  we  did  know  once  is  not  a  sign  of 
possession  but  a  sign  of  loss;  it  is  like  the  number  of  an 
engraving  which  is  no  longer  on  its  nail,  the  title  of  a  vol- 
ume no  longer  to  be  found  on  its  shelf.  My  mind  is  the 
empty  frame  of  a  thousand  vanished  images.  Sharpened 
by  incessant  training,  it  is  all  culture,  but  it  has  retained 
hardly  anything  in  its  meshes.  It  is  without  matter,  and 
is  only  form.  It  no  longer  has  knowledge;  it  has  become 
method.  It  is  etherealized,  algebraicized.  Life  has  treated 
it  as  death  treats  otlier  minds;  it  has  already  prepared  it 
for  a  further  metamorphosis.  Since  the  age  of  sixteen  on- 
ward I  have  been  able  to  look  at  things  with  the  eyes  of  a 
blind  man  recently  operated  upon — that  is  to  say,  I  have 
been  able  to  suppress  in  myself  the  results  of  the  long  edu- 
cation of  sight,  and  to  abolish  distances;  and  now  I  find 


352  AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL. 

myself  regarding  existence  as  though  from  beyond  the 
tomb,  from  another  world;  all  is  strange  to  me;  I  am,  aa 
it  were,  outside  my  own  body  and  individuality;  I  am 
depersonalized y  detached,  cut  adrift.  Is  this  madness? 
No.  Madness  means  the  impossibility  of  recovering  one's 
normal  balance  after  the  mind  has  thus  played  truant 
among  alien  forms  of  being,  and  followed  Dante  to  invisible 
worlds.  Madness  means  incapacity  for  self-judgment  and 
self-control.  Whereas  it  seems  to  me  that  my  mental 
transformations  are  but  philosophical  experiences,  I  am 
tied  to  none.  I  am  but  making  psychological  investiga- 
tions. At  the  same  time  I  do  not  hide  from  myself  that 
such  experiences  weaken  the  hold  cf  common  sense,  be- 
cause they  act  as  solvents  of  all  personal  interests  and  preju- 
dices. I  can  only  defend  myself  against  them  by  return' 
ing  to  the  common  life  of  men,  and  by  bracing  and 
fortifying  the  will. 

July  14,  1880. — What  is  the  book  which,  of  all  Genev^e 
literature,  I  would  soonest  have  written?  Perhaps  th^t 
of  Madame  Necker  de  Saussure,  or  Madame  de  StaeP* 
"L'Allemagne."  To  a  Genevese,  moral  philosophy  is  still 
the  most  congenial  and  remunerative  of  studies.  Intellec- 
tual seriousness  is  what  suits  us  least  ill.  History,  politics, 
economical  science,  education,  practical  philosophy — ^these 
are  our  subjects.  We  have  everything  to  lose  in  the 
attempt  to  make  ourselves  mere  Frenchified  copies  of  the 
Parisians :  by  so  doing  we  are  merely  carrying  water  to  the 
Seine.  Independent  criticism  is  perhaps  easier  at  Geneva 
than  at  Paris,  and  Geneva  ought  to  remain  faithful  to 
her  own  special  line,  which,  as  compared  with  that  of 
France,  is  one  of  greater  freedom  from  the  tyranny  of 
taste  and  fashion  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  tyranny  of 
ruling  opinion  on  the  other — of  Catholicism  or  Jacobinism. 
Geneva  should  be  to  La  Grande  Nation  what  Diogenes 
was  to  Alexander;  her  r61e  is  to  represent  the  independ- 
ent thought  and  the  free  speech  which  is  not  dazzled  by 
prestige,  and  does  not  blink  the  truth.  It  is  true  that  the 
r61e  is  an  ungrateful  one,  that  it  lends  itself  to  sarcasm  and 
migrepresentation — but  ^Viat  matter? 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  353 

July  28, 1880. — This  afternoon  I  have  had  a  walk  in  the 
sunshine,  and  have  just  come  back  rejoicing  in  a  renewed 
communion  with  nature.  The  waters  of  the  Rhone  and 
the  Arve,  the  murmur  of  the  river,  the  austerity  of  its 
banks,  the  brilliancy  of  the  foliage,  the  play  of  the  leaves, 
the  splendor  of  the  July  sunlight,  the  rich  fertility  of  the 
fields,  the  lucidity  of  the  distant  mountains,  the  whiteness 
of  the  glaciers  under  the  azure  serenity  of  the  sky,  the 
sparkle  and  foam  of  the  mingling  rivers,  the  leafy  masses 
of  the  La  Batie  woods — all  and  everything  delighted  me. 
It  seemed  to  me  as  though  the  years  of  strength  had  come 
back  to  me.  I  was  overwhelmed  with  sensations.  I  was 
surprised  and  grateful.  The  universal  life  carried  me  on 
its  breast;  the  summer's  caress  went  to  my  heart.  Once 
more  my  eyes  beheld  the  vast  horizons,  the  soaring  peaks, 
the  blue  lakes,  the  winding  valleys,  and  all  the  free  outlets 
of  old  days.  And  yet  there  was  no  painful  sense  of  long- 
ing. The  scene  left  upon  me  an  indefinable  impression, 
which  was  neither  hope,  nor  desire,  nor  regret,  but  rather 
a  sense  of  emotion,  of  passionate  impulse,  mingled  with 
admiration  and  anxiety.  I  am  conscious  at  once  of  joy 
and  of  want;  beyond  what  I  possess  I  see  the  impossible 
and  the  unattainable;  I  guagemyown  wealth  and  poverty; 
in  a  word,  I  am  and  I  am  not — my  inner  state  is  one  of 
contradiction,  because  it  is  one  of  transition.  The  ambiguity 
of  it  is  characteristic  of  human  nature,  which  is  ambig- 
uous, because  it  is  flesh  becoming  spirit,  space  changing 
into  thought,  the  Finite  looking  dimly  out  upon  the 
Infinite,  intelligence  working  its  way  through  love  and 
pain. 

Man  is  the  seiisorwm  commune  of  nature,  the  point  at 
which  all  values  are  interchanged.  Mind  is  the  plastic 
medium,  the  principle,  and  the  result  of  all;  at  once 
material  and  laboratory,  product  and  formula,  sensation, 
expression,  and  law;  that  which  is,  that  which  does,  that 
which  knows.  All  is  not  mind,  but  mind  is  in  all,  and 
contains  all.  It  is  the  consciousness  of  being — that  is, 
Being  raised  to  the  second  power.     If  the  universe  sub- 


354  AMIEL' a  JOURNAL. 

sists,  it  is  because  the  Eternal  mind  loves  to  perceive  its 
own  content,  in  all  its  wealth  and  expansion — especially 
in  its  stages  of  preparation.  Not  that  God  is  an  egotist. 
He  allows  myriads  upon  myriads  of  suns  to  disport  them- 
selves in  his  shadow;  he  grants  life  and  consciousness  to 
innumerable  multitudes  of  creatures  who  thus  participate 
in  being  and  in  nature;  and  all  these  animated  monads 
multiply,  so  to  speak,  his  divinity. 

August  4,  1880. — I  have  read  a  few  numbers  of  the 
Feuille  Centrale  de  Zofingen.*  It  is  one  of  those  perpet- 
ual new  beginnings  of  youth  which  thinks  it  is  producing 
something  fresh  when  it  is  only  repeating  the  old 

Nature  is  governed  by  continuity — the  continuity  of 
repetition;  it  is  like  an  oft-told  tale,  or  the  recurring 
burden  of  a  song.  The  rose-trees  are  never  tired  of  rose- 
bearing,  the  birds  of  nest-building,  young  hearts  of  loving, 
or  young  voices  of  singing  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
which  have  served  their  predecessors  a  hundred  thousand 
times  before.  Profound  monotony  in  universal  movement 
— there  is  the  simplest  formula  furnished  by  the  spectacle 
of  the  world.  All  circles  are  alike,  and  every  existence 
tends  to  trace  its  circle. 

How,  then,  is  fasticUnm  to  be  avoided?  By  shutting 
our  eyes  to  the  general  uniformity,  by  laying  stress  upon, 
the  small  differences  which  exist,  and  then  by  learning  to 
enjoy  repetition.  What  to  the  intellect  is  old  and  worn- 
out  is  perennially  young  and  fresh  to  the  heart;  curiosity 
is  insatiable,  but  love  is  never  tired.  The  natural  preserva- 
tive against  satiety,  too,  is  work.  What  we  do  may  weary 
others,  but  the  personal  effort  is  at  least  useful  to  its 
author.  Where  every  one  works,  the  general  life  is  sure 
to  possess  charm  and  savor,  even  though  it  repeat  forever 
the  same  song,  the  same  aspirations,  the  same  prejudices, 
and  the  same  sighs.  "  To  every  man  his  turn,"  is  the 
motto  of  mortal   beings.     If  what  they  do  is  old,  they 

*Tbe  journal  of  a  students'  society,  drawn  from  the  diflFerent 
cantons  of  Switzerland,  which  meets  every  year  in  the  little  town  of 
Zofingen 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  355 

themselves  are  new;  when  they  imitate,  they  think  they 
are  inventing.  They  have  received,  and  they  transmit. 
-£'  sempre  bene! 

August  24,  1880. — As  years  go  on  I  love  the  beautiful 
more  than  the  sublime,  the  smooth  more  than  the  rough, 
the  calm  nobility  of  Plato  more  than  the  fierce  holiness  of 
the  world's  Jeremiahs.  The  vehement  barbarian  is  to  me 
the  inferior  of  the  mild  and  playful  Socrates.  My  taste  is 
for  the  well-balanced  soul  and  the  well-trained  heart — for 
a  liberty  which  is  not  harsh  and  insolent,  like  that  of  the 
newly  enfranchised  slave,  but  lovable.  The  temperament 
which  charms  me  is  that  in  which  one  virtue  leads  natur- 
ally to  another.  All  exclusive  and  sharply-marked  qualities 
are  but  so  many  signs  of  imperfection. 

August  29,  1880. — To-day  I  am  conscious  of  improve- 
ment. I  am  taking  advantage  of  it  to  go  back  to  my 
neglected  work  and  my  interrupted  habits;  but  in  a  Aveek 
I  have  grown  several  months  older — that  is  easy  to  see. 
The  affection  of  those  around  me  makes  them  pretend  not 
to  see  it;  but  the  looking-glass  tells  the  truth.  The  fact 
■does  not  take  avyay  from  the  pleasure  of  convalescence; 
but  still  one  hears  in  it  the  shuttle  of  destiny,  and  death 
seems  to  be  nearing  rapidly,  in  spite  of  the  halts  and  truces 
which  are  granted  one.  The  most  beautiful  existence,  it 
seems  to  me,  would  be  that  of  a  river  which  should  get 
through  all  its  rapids  and  waterfalls  not  far  from  its  rising, 
.and  should  then  in  its  widening  course  form  a  succession 
of  rich  valleys,  and  in  each  of  them  a  lake  equally  but 
diversely  beautiful,  to  end,  after  the  plains  of  age  Avere 
past,  in  the  ocean  where  all  that  is  weary  and  heavy-laden 
comes  to  seek  for  rest.  How  few  there  are  of  these  full, 
fruitful,  gentle  lives!  What  is  the  use  of  wishing  for  or 
regretting  them?  It  is  wiser  and  harder  to  see  in  one's 
own  lot  the  best  one  could  have  had,  and  to  say  to  one's 
self  that  after  all  the  cleverest  tailor  cannot  make  us  a 
coat  to  fit  us  more  closely  than  our  skin. 

"  Le  vrai  nom  du  bonheur  est  le  contentement." 


356  AMIEU8  JOURNAL. 

.  .  .  The  essential  thing  for  every  one  is  to  accept 
his  destiny.  Fate  has  deceived  you ;  you  have  sometimes 
grumbled  at  your  lot;  well,  no  more  mutual  reproaches; 
go  to  sleep  in  peace. 

August  30,  1880.  {Two  o^dock). — Rumblings  of  a  grave 
and  distant  thunder.  The  sky  is  gray  but  rainless;  the 
sharp  little  cries  of  the  birds  show  agitation  and  fear;  one 
might  imagine  it  the  prelude  to  a  symphony  or  a  catas- 
trophe. 

"  Quel  eclair  te  traverse,  6  mon  coeur  soucieux?" 

Strange — all  the  business  of  the  immediate  neighborhood 
is  going  on;  there  is  even  more  movement  than  usual; 
and  yet  all  these  noises  are,  as  it  were,  held  suspended  in 
the  silence — in  a  soft,  positive  silence,  which  they  cannot 
disguise — silence  akin  to  that  which,  in  every  town,  on 
one  day  of  the  week,  replaces  the  vague  murmur  of  the 
laboring  hive.  Such  silence  at  such  an  hour  is  extra- 
ordinary. There  is  something  expectant,  contemplative, 
almost  anxious  in  it.  Are  there  days  on  which  "  the  little 
breath  "  of  Job  produces  more  effect  than  tempest?  on 
which  a  dull  rumbling  on  the  distant  horizon  is  enough  to 
suspend  the  concert  of  voices,  like  the  roaring  of  a  desert 
lion  at  the  fall  of  night? 

September  9,  1880. — It  seems  to  me  that  with  the 
decline  of  my  active  force  I  am  becoming  more  purely 
spirit;  everything  is  growing  transparent  to  me.  I  see 
the  types,  the  foundation  of  beings,  the  sense  of  things. 

All  personal  events,  all  particular  experiences,  are  to  me 
texts  for  meditation,  facts  to  be  generalized  into  laws, 
realities  to  be  reduced  to  ideas.  Life  is  only  a  document 
to  be  interpreted,  matter  to  be  spiritualized.  Such  is  the 
life  of  the  thinker.  Every  day  he  strips  himself  more  and 
more  of  personality.  If  he  consents  to  act  and  to  feel,  it  is 
that  he  may  the  better  understand ;  if  he  wills,  it  is  that 
he  may  know  what  will  is.  Although  it  is  sweet  to  him  to 
be  loved,  and  he  knows  nothing  else  so  sweet,  yet  there 
also  he  seems  to  himself  to  be  the  occasion  of  the  phenom- 


A  MTEL'S  JO  URNAL.  357 

enon  rather  than  its  end.  He  contemplates  the  spectacle 
of  love,  and  love  for  him  remains  a  spectacle.  He  does 
not  even  believe  his  body  his  own;  he  feels  the  vital  whirl- 
wind passing  through  him — lent  to  him,  as  it  were,  for  a 
moment,  in  order  that  he  may  perceive  the  cosmic  vibra- 
tions. He  is  a  mere  thinking  subject;  he  retains  only  the 
form  of  things;  he  attributes  to  himself  the  material 
possession  of  nothing  whatsoever;  he  asks  nothing  from 
life  but  wisdom.  This  temper  of  mind  makes  him  incom- 
.prehensible  to  all  that  loves  enjoyment,  dominion,  posses- 
sion. He  is  fluid  as  a  phantom  that  we  see  but  cannot 
grasp ;  he  resembles  a  man,  as  the  manes  of  Achilles  or 
the  shade  of  Creusa  resembled  the  living.  Without  having 
died,  I  am  a  ghost.  Other  men  are  dreams  to  me,  and  I 
am  a  dream  to  them. 

Later. — Consciousness  in  me  takes  no  account  of  the 
category  of  time,  and  therefore  all  those  partitions  which 
tend  to  make  of  life  a  palace  with  a  thousand  rooms,  do 
not  exist  in  my  case ;  I  am  still  in  the  primitive  unicellular 
state,  I  possess  myself  only  as  Monad  and  as  Ego,  and  I 
feel  my  faculties  themselves  reabsorbed  into  the  substance 
which  they  have  individualized.  All  the  endowment  of 
animality  is,  so  to  speak,  repudiated;  all  the  product  of 
study  and  of  cultivation  is  in  the  same  way  annulled ;  the 
whole  crystallization  is  redissolved  into  fluid;  the  whole 
rainbow  is  withdrawn  within  the  dewdrop;  consequences 
return  to  the  principle,  effects  to  the  cause,  the  bird  to 
the  egg,  the  organism  to  its  germ. 

This  psychological  reinvolution  is  an  anticipation  of  death ; 
it  represents  the  life  beyond  the  grave,  the  return  to 
scheol,  the  soul  fading  into  the  world  of  ghosts,  or  descend- 
ing into  the  region  of  Die  Mutter;  it  implies  the  simplifi- 
cation of  the  individual  who,  allowing  all  the  accidents  of 
personality  to  evaporate,  exists  henceforward  only  in  the 
indivisible  state,  the  state  of  point,  of  potentiality,  of  preg- 
nant nothingness.  Is  not  this  the  true  definition  of  mind? 
is  not  mind,  dissociated  from  space  and  time,  just  this? 
Its  development,  past  or  future,  is  contained  in  it  just  as 


868  AMIEU8  JOURNAL. 

a  curve  is  contained  in  its  algebraical  formula.  This 
nothing  is  an  all.  This  pundum  without  dimensions  is  a 
punctum  saliens.  What  is  the  acorn  but  the  oak  which 
has  lost  its  branches,  its  leaves,  its  trunk,  and  its  roots — 
that  is  to  say,  all  its  apparatus,  its  forms,  its  particularities 
— but  which  is  still  present  in  concentration,  in  essence,, 
in  a  force  which  contains  the  possibility  of  complete 
revival? 

This  impoverishment,  then,  is  only  superficially  a  loss,  a 
reduction.  To  be  reduced  to  those  elements  in  one  which 
are  eternal,  is  indeed  to  die  but  not  to  be  annihilated :  it  is 
simply  to  become  virtual  again. 

October  9, 1880.  {Clarens). — A  walk.  Deep  feeling  and 
admiration.  Nature  was  so  beautiful,  so  caressing,  so 
poetical,  so  maternal.  The  sunlight,  the  leaves,  the  sky, 
the  bells,  all  said  to  me — "  Be  of  good  strength  and  cour- 
age, poor  bruised  one.  This  is  nature's  kindly  season^ 
here  is  forgetfulness,  calm,  and  rest.  Faults  and  troubles, 
anxieties  and  regrets,  cares  and  wrongs,  are  but  one  and 
the  same  burden.  We  make  no  distinctions;  we  comfort 
all  sorrows,  we  bring  peace,  and  with  us  is  consolation. 
Salvation  to  the  weary,  salvation  to  the  afflicted,  salvation 
to  the  sick,  to  sinners,  to  all  that  suffer  in  heart,  in  con- 
science, and  in  body.  We  are  the  fountain  of  blessing;, 
drink  and  live!  God  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  upon  the  just 
and  upon  the  unjust.  There  is  nothing  grudging  in  his 
munificence;  he  does  not  weigh  his  gifts  like  a  money- 
changer, or  number  them  like  a  cashier.  Come — there  is 
enough  for  all !" 

October  29,  1880.  {Geneva). — The  ideal  which  a  man  pro- 
fesses may  itself  be  only  a  matter  of  appearance — a  device 
for  misleading  his  neighbor,  or  deluding  himself.  The 
individual  is  always  ready  to  claim  for  himself  the  merits 
of  the  badge  under  which  he  fights;  whereas,  generally 
speaking,  it  is  the  contrary  which  happens.  The  nobler 
the  badge,  the  less  estimable  is  the  wearer  of  it.  Such  at 
least  is  the  presumption.  It  is  extremely  dangerous  to 
pride  one's  self  on  any  moral  or  religious  specialty  what- 


AMIEU8  JOURNAL,  359 

ever.  Tell  me  what  you  pique  yourself  upon,  *nd  I  wili 
tell  you  what  you  are  not. 

But  how  are  we  to  know  what  an  individual  is?  First 
of  all  by  his  acts;  but  by  something  else  too — something 
which  is  only  perceived  by  intuition.  Soul  judges  soul  by 
elective  affinity,  reaching  through  and  beyond  both  words 
and  silence,  looks  and  actions. 

The  criterion  is  subjective,  I  allow,  and  liable  to  error; 
but  in  the  first  place  there  is  no  safer  one,  and  in  the  next, 
the  accuracy  of  the  judgment 'is  in  proportion  to  the  moral 
culture  of  the  judge.  Courage  is  an  authority  on  courage, 
goodness  on  goodness,  nobleness  on  nobleness,  loyalty  on 
uprightness.  We  only  truly  know  what  we  have,  or  what 
we  have  lost  and  regret,  as,  for  example,  childish  inno- 
cence, virginal  purity,  or  stainless  honor.  The  truest  and 
best  judge,  then,  is  Infinite  Goodness,  and  next  to  it,  the 
regenerated  sinner  or  the  saint,  the  man  tried  by  experi- 
ence or  the  sage.  Naturally,  the  touchstone  in  us  becomes 
finer  and  truer  the  better  we  are. 

November  3,  1880. — What  impression  has  the  story  I 
have  just  read  made  upon  me?  A  mixed  one.  The  imag- 
ination gets  no  pleasure  out  of  it,  although  the  intellect  is 
amused.  Why?  Because  the  author's  mood  is  one  of 
incessant  irony  and  persiflage.  The  Voltairean  tradition 
has  been  his  guide — a  great  deal  of  wit  and  satire,  very 
little  feeling,  no  simplicity.  It  is  a  combination  of  qualities 
which  serves  eminently  well  for  satire,  for  journalism,  and 
for  paper  warfare  of  all  kinds,  but  which  is  much  less  suita- 
ble to  the  novel  or  short  story,  for  cleverness  is  not  poetry, 
ani  the  novel  is  still  within  the  domain  of  poetry,  although 
on  the  frontier.  The  vague  discomfort  aroused  in  one  by 
these  epigrammatic  productions  is  due  probably  to  a  confu- 
sion of  kinds.  Ambiguity  of  style  keeps  one  in  a  perpetual 
state  of  tension  and  self-defense;  we  ought  not  to  be  left 
in  doubt  whether  the  speaker  is  jesting  or  serious,  mocking 
or  tender.  Moreover,  banter  is  not  humor,  and  never 
will  be.  I  think,  indeed,  that  the  professional  wit  finds  a 
difficulty  in  being  genuinely  comic,  for  want  of  depth  and 


360  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

disinterested  feeling.  To  laugh  at  things  and  people  is 
not  really  a  joy;  it  is  at  best  but  a  cold  pleasure.  Buffoon- 
ery is  wholesomer,  because  it  is  a  little  more  kindly.  The 
reason  why  continuous  sarcasm  repels  us  is  that  it  lacks 
two  things — humanity  and  seriousness.  Sarcasm  implies 
pride,  since  it  means  putting  one's  self  above  others — and 
levity,  because  conscience  is  allowed  no  voice  in  controlling 
it.  In  short,  we  read  satirical  books,  but  we  only  love  and 
cling  to  the  books  in  which  there  is  heart. 

November  22,  1880. — Hciw  is  ill-nature  to  be  met  and 
overcome?  First,  by  humility:  -when  a  man  knows  his 
own  weaknesses,  why  should  he  be  angry  with  others  for 
pointing  them  out?  No  doubt  it  is  not  very  amiable  of 
them  to  do  so,  but  still,  truth  is  on  their  side.  Secondly, 
by  reflection:  after  all  we  are  what  we  are,  and  if  we  have 
been  thinking  too  much  of  ourselves,  it  is  only  an  opinion 
to  be  modified;  the  incivility  of  our  neighbor  leaves  us 
what  we  were  before.  Above  all,  by  pardon :  there  is  only 
one  way  of  not  hating  those  who  do  us  wrong,  and  that  is 
by  doing  them  good;  anger  is  best  conquered  by  kindness. 
Such  a  victory  over  feeling  may  not  indeed  aifect  those 
who  have  wronged  us,  but  it  is  a  valuable  piece  of  self-dis- 
cipline.  It  is  vulgar  to  be  angry  on  one's  own  account; 
we  ought  only  to  be  angry  for  great  causes.  Besides,  the 
poisoned  dart  can  only  be  extracted  from  the  wound  by  the 
balm  of  a  silent  and  thoughtful  charity.  Why  do  we  let 
human  malignity  embitter  us?  why  should  ingratitude, 
jealousy — perfidy  even — enrage  us?  There  is  no  end  to 
recriminations,  complaints,  or  reprisals.  The  simplest 
plan  is  to  blot  everything  out.  Anger,  rancor,  bitterness, 
trouble  the  soul.  Everyman  is  a  dispenser  of  justice;  but 
there  is  one  wrong  that  he  is  not  bound  to  punish — that 
of  which  he  himself  is  the  victim.  Such  a  wrong  is  to  be 
healed,  not  avenged.     Fire  purifies  all. 

"  Mon  ame  est  comme  un  feu  qui  devore  et  pArfume 
Ce  qu'on  jette  pour  le  ternir." 

December  27,   1880. — In  an  article  I  have  just  read, 


A SflEL'S  JO  URNAL.  361 

Biedermann  reproaches  Strauss  with  being  too  negative, 
and  with  having  broken  with  Christianity.  The  object 
to  be  pursued,  according  to  him,  should  be  the  freeing  of 
religion  from  the  mythological  element,  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  another  point  of  view  for  the  antiquated  dualism  of 
orthodoxy — this  other  point  of  view  to  be  the  victory  over 
the  world,  produced  by  the  sense  of  divine  sonship. 

It  is  true  that  another  question  arises:  has  not  a  religion 
which  has  separated  itself  from  special  miracle,  from  local 
interventions  of  the  supernatural,  and  from  mystery,  lost 
its  savor  and  its  efficacy?  For  the  sake  of  satisfying  a 
thinking  and  instructed  public,  is  it  wise  to  sacrifice  the 
influence  of  religion  over  the  multitude?  Answer.  A 
pious  fiction  is  still  a  fiction.  Truth  has  the  highest 
claim.  It  is  for  the  world  to  accommodate  itself  to  truth, 
and  not  vice  versd.  Copernicus  upset  the  astronomy  of 
the  Middle  Ages — so  much  the  worse  for  it!  The  Eternal 
Gospel  revolutionizes  modern  churches — what  matter! 
When  symbols  become  transparent,  they  have  no  further 
binding  force.  We  see  in  them  a  poem,  an  allegory,  a 
metaphor;  but  we  believe  in  them  no  longer. 

Yes,  but  still  a  certain  esotericism  is  inevitable,  since 
critical,  scientific,  and  philosophical  culture  is  only  attain- 
able by  a  minority.  The  new  faith  must  have  its  symbols 
too.  At  present  the  effect  it  produces  on  pious  souls  is  a 
more  or  less  profane  one;  it  has  a  disrespectful,  incredu- 
lous, frivolous  look,  and  it  seems  to  free  a  man  from  tradi- 
tional dogma  at  the  cost  of  seriousness  of  conscience. 
How  are  sensitiveness  of  feeling,  the  sense  of  sin,the  desire 
for  pardon,  the  thirst  for  holiness,  to  be  preserved  among 
us,  when  the  errors  which  have  served  them  so  long  for 
support  and  food  have  been  eliminated?  Is  not  illusion 
indispensable?  is  it  not  the  divine  process  of  education? 

Perhaps  the  best  way  is  to  draw  a  deep  distinction 
between  opinion  and  belief,  and  between  belief  and  science. 
The  mind  which  discerns  these  different  degrees  may 
allow  itself  imagination  and  faith,  and  still  remain  within 
the  lines  of  progress. 


362  AMIKUa  JOURNAL, 

December  28,  1880. — There  are  two  modes  of  classing 
the  people  we  know :  the  first  is  utilitarian — it  starts  from 
ourselves,  divides  our  friends  from  our  enemies,  and  dis- 
tinguishes those  who  are  antipathetic  to  us,  those  who  are 
indifferent,  those  who  can  serve  or  harm  us;  the  second  is 
disinterested — it  classes  men  according  to  their  intrinsic 
value,  their  own  qualities  and  defects,  apart  from  the  feel- 
ings which  they  have  for  us,  or  we  for  them. 

My  tendency  is  to  the  second  kind  of  classification.  I 
appreciate  men  less  by  the  special  affection  which  they 
show  to  me  than  by  their  personal  excellence,  and  I  cannot 
confuse  gratitude  with  esteem.  It  is  a  happy  thing  for  us 
when  the  two  feelings  can  be  combined;  and  nothing  is 
more  painful  than  to  owe  gratitude  where  yet  we  can  feel 
neither  respect  nor  confidence. 

I  am  not  very  willing  to  believe  in  the  permanence  of 
accidental  states.  The  generosity  of  a  miser,  the  good 
nature  of  an  egotist,  the  gentleness  of  a  passionate  tem- 
perament, the  tenderness  of  a  barren  nature,  the  piety  of  a 
dull  heart,  the  humility  of  an  excitable  self-love,  interest 
me  as  phenomena — nay,  even  touch  me  if  I  am  the  object 
of  them,  but  they  inspire  me  with  very  little  confidence. 
I  foresee  the  end  of  them  too  clearly.  Every  exception 
tends  to  disappear  and  to  return  to  the  rule.  All  privilege 
is  temporary,  and  besides,  I  am  less  flattered  than  anxious 
when  I  find  myself  the  object  of  a  privilege. 

A  man's  primitive  character  may  be  covered  over  by 
alluvial  deposits  of  culture  and  acquisition — none  the  less 
is  it  sure  to  come  to  the  surface  when  years  have  worn 
away  all  that  is  accessory  and  adventitious.  I  admit  indeed 
the  possibility  of  great  moral  crises  which  sometimes 
revolutionize  the  soul,  but  I  dare  not  reckon  on  them.  It 
is  a  possibility — not  a  probability.  In  choosing  one's 
friends  we  must  choose  those  whose  qualities  are  inborn, 
and  their  virtues  virtues  of  temperament.  To  lay  the  foun- 
dations of  friendship  on  borrowed  or  added  virtues  is  to  build 
on  an  artificial  soil ;  we  run  too  many  risks  by  it. 

Exceptions  are  snares,  and  we  ought  above  all  to  distrust 


AMIKL'S  JOURNAL.  363- 

•hem  when  they  charm  our  vanity.  To  catch  and  fix  a 
fickle  heart  is  a  task  which  tempts  all  women ;  and  a  man 
finds  something  intoxicating  in  the  tears  of  tenderness  and 
joy  which  he  alone  has  had  the  power  to  draw  from  a 
proud  woman.  But  attractions  of  this  kind  are  deceptive. 
Affinity  of  nature  founded  on  worship  of  the  same  ideal, 
and  perfect  in  proportion  to  perfectness  of  soul,  is  the  only 
affinity  which  is  worth  anything.  True  love  is  that  which 
ennobles  the  personality,  fortifies  the  heart,  and  sanctifies 
the  existence.  And  the  being  we  love  must  not  be  myster- 
ious and  sphinx-like,  but  clear  and  limpid  as  a  diamond; 
so  that  admiration  and  attachment  may  grow  with  knowl- 
edge. 


Jealousy  is  a  terrible  thing.  It  resembles  love,  only  it  is 
precisely  love's  contrary.  Instead  of  wishing  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  object  loved,  it  desires  the  dependence  of  that 
object  upon  itself,  and  its  own  triumph.  Love  is  the  for- 
getfulness  of  self;  jealousy  is  the  most  passionate  form  of 
egotism,  the  glorification  of  a  despotic,  exacting,  and  vain 
ego,  which  can  neither  forget  nor  subordinate  itself.  Tha 
contrast  is  perfect. 


Austerity  in  women  is  sometimes  the  accompaniment  of 
a  rare  power  of  loving.  And  when  it  is  so  their  attach- 
ment is  strong  as  death ;  their  fidelity  as  resisting  as  the- 
diamond;  they  are  hungry  for  devotion  and  athirst  for 
sacrifice.  Their  love  is  a  piety,  their  tenderness  a  religion,, 
and  they  triple  the  energy  of  love  by  giving  to  it  the  sanc- 
tity of  duty. 


To  the  spectator  over  fifty,  the  world  certainly  presents 
a  good  deal  that  is  new,  but  a  great  deal  more  which  is 
only  the  old  furbished  up — mere  plagiarism  and  modifica- 
tion, lather  than  amelioration.  Almost  everything  is  a 
copy  of  a  copy,  a  reflection  of  a  reflection,  and  the  perfect 
being  is  as  rare  now  as  he  ever  was.  Let  us  not  complain, 
of  it;  it  is  the  reason  why  the  world  lasts.  Humanity- 
improves  but  slowly;  that  is  why  history  goes  on. 


364  AMIEU 8  JOURNAL. 

Is  not  progress  the  goad  of  Siva?  It  excites  the  torch 
to  bum  itself  away;  it  hastens  the  approach  of  death. 
Societies  which  change  rapidly  only  reach  their  final  catas- 
trophe the  sooner.  Children  who  are  too  precocious  never 
reach  maturity.  Progress  should  be  the  aroma  of  life,  not 
its  substance. 


Man  is  a  passion  which  brings  a  will  into  play,  which 
works  an  intelligence — and  thus  the  organs  which  seem  to 
be  in  the  service  of  intelligence,  are  in  reality  only  the 
agents  of  passion.  For  all  the  commoner  sorts  of  being, 
determinism  is  true :  inward  liberty  exists  only  as  an  ex- 
ception and  as  the  result  of  self-conquest.  And  even  he 
who  has  tasted  liberty  is  only  free  intermittently  and  by 
moments.  True  liberty,  then,  is  not  a  continuous  state; 
it  is  not  an  indefeasible  and  invariable  quality.  We  are 
free  only  so  far  as  we  are  not  dupes  of  ourselves,  our  pre- 
texts, our  instincts,  our  temperament.  We  are  freed  by 
energy  and  the  critical  spirit — that  is  to  say,  by  detach- 
ment of  soul,  by  self-government.  So  that  we  are  enslaved, 
but  susceptible  of  freedom ;  we  are  bound,  but  capable  of 
shaking  off  our  bonds.  The  soul  is  caged,  but  it  has 
power  to  flutter  within  its  cage. 


Material  results  are  but  the  tardy  sign  of  invisible  activi- 
ties. The  bullet  has  started  long  before  the  noise  of  the 
report  has  reached  us.  The  decisive  events  of  the  world 
take  place  in  the  intellect. 


Sorrow  is  the  most  tremendous  of  all  realities  in  the  sen- 
sible world,  but  the  transfiguration  of  sorrow  after  the 
manner  of  Christ  is  a  more  beautiful  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem than  the  extirpation  of  sorrow,  after  the  method  of 
^akyamouni. 


Life  should  be  a  giving  birth  to  the  soul,  the  develop- 
ment of  a  higher  mode  of  reality.  The  animal  must  be 
humanized:  flesh  must  be  made  spirit;  physiological  activ 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL,  365 

ity  must  be  transmuted  into  intellect  and  conscience,  into 
reason,  justice,  and  generosity,  as  the  torch  is  transmuted 
into  life  and  warmth.  The  blind,  greedy,  selfish  nature 
of  man  must  put  on  beauty  and  nobleness.  This  heavenly 
alchemy  is  what  justifies  our  presence  on  the  earth :  it  is 
our  mission  and  our  glory. 


To  renounce  happiness  and  think  only  ot  duty,  to  put 
conscience  in  the  place  of  feeling — this  voluntary  martyr- 
dom has  its  nobility.  The  natural  man  in  us  flinches,  but 
the  better  self  submits.  To  hope  for  justice  in  the  woild 
is  a  sign  of  sickly  sensibility;  we  must  be  able  to  do  with- 
out it.  True  manliness  consists  in  such  independence. 
Let  the  world  think  what  it  will  of  us,  it  is  its  own  affair. 
If  it  will  not  give  us  the  place  which  is  lawfully  ours  until 
after  our  death,  or  perhaps  not  at  all,  it  is  but  acting 
within  its  right.  It  is  our  business  to  behave  as  though 
our  country  were  grateful,  as  though  the  world  were  equi- 
table, as  though  opinion  were  clear-sighted,  as  though  life 
were  just,  as  though  men  were  good. 


Death  itself  may  become  matter  of  consent,  and  there- 
fore a  moral  act.  The  animal  expires;  man  surrenders  his 
soul  to  the  author  of  the  soul. 

[With  the  year  1881,  beginning  with  the  month  of 
January,  we  enter  upon  the  last  period  of  Amiel's  illness. 
Although  he  continued  to  attend  to  his  professional  duties, 
and  never  spoke  of  his  forebodings,  he  felt  himself  mortally 
ill,  as  we  shall  see  by  the  following  extracts  from  the 
Journal.  Amiel  wrote  up  to  the  end,  doing  little  else, 
however,  toward  the  last  than  record  the  progress  of  his 
disease,  and  the  proofs  of  interest  and  kindliness  which  he 
received.  After  weeks  of  suffering  and  pain  a  state  of  ex- 
treme weakness  gradually  gained  upon  him.  His  last  lines 
are  dated  the  29th  of  April;  it  was  on  the  11th  of  May 
that  he  succumbed,  without  a  struggle,  to  the  complicated 
disease  from  which  he  suffered. — S.J 

January  5, 1881. — I  think  I  fear  shame  more  than  death. 


366  AMIEL'S  JO  URN  A  L. 

Tacitus  said:  Omnia  serviliter  pro  dominatione.  My  ten- 
dency is  just  the  contrary.  Even  when  it  is  vohmtarj, 
dependence  is  a  burden  to  me.  I  should  blush  to  find  my- 
self determined  by  interest,  submitting  to  constraint,  or 
becoming  the  slave  of  any  will  whatever.  To  me  vanity  is 
slavery,  self-love  degrading,  and  utilitarianism  meanness. 
I  detest  the  ambition  which  makes  you  the  liege  man  of 
something  or  some  one — I  desire  to  be  simply  my  own 
master. 

If  I  had  health  I  should  be  the  freest  man  I  know. 
Although  perhaps  a  little  hardness  of  heart  would  be  desir- 
able to  make  me  still  more  independent. 

Let  me  exaggerate  nothing.  My  liberty  is  only  negative. 
Nobody  has  any  hold  over  me,  but  many  things  have  be- 
come impossible  to  me,  and  if  I  were  so  foolish  as  to  wish 
for  them,  the  limits  of  my  liberty  would  soon  become 
apparent.  Therefore  I  take  care  not  to  wish  for  them,  and 
not  to  let  my  thoughts  dwell  on  them.  I  only  desire  what 
I  am  able  for,  and  in  this  way  I  run  my  head  against  no 
wall,  I  cease  even  to  be  conscious  of  the  boundaries  which 
enclose  me.  I  take  care  to  wish  for  rather  less  than  is  in 
my  power,  that  I  may  not  even  be  reminded  of  the  ob- 
stacles in  my  way.  Renunciation  is  the  safeguard  of  dig- 
nity. Let  us  strip  ourselves  if  we  would  not  be  stripped. 
He  who  has  freely  given  up  his  life  may  look  death  in  the 
face:  what  more  can  it  take  away  from  him?  Do  away 
with  desire  and  practice  charity — there  you  have  the  whole 
method  of  Buddha,  the  whole  secret  of  the  great  Deliver- 
ance. 

It  is  snowing,  and  my  chest  is  troublesome.  So  that  I 
depend  on  nature  and  on  God.  But  I  do  not  depend  on 
human  caprice;  this  is  the  point  to  be  insisted  on.  It  is 
true  that  my  chemist  may  make  a  blunder  and  poison  me, 
my  banker  may  reduce  me  to  pauperism,  just  as  an  earth- 
quake may  destroy  my  house  without  hope  of  redress. 
Absolute  independence,  therefore,  is  a  pure  chimera. 
But  I  do  possess  relative  independence — that  of  the  stoic 
who  withdraws  into  the  fortress  of  his  will,  and  shuts  the 
gates  behind  him.    . 


AMI  EL'S  JOURNAL.  36? 

"  Jurons,  excepte  Dieu,  de  n'avoir  point  de  maitre." 

Th>&  oath  of  old  Geneva  remains  my  motto  still. 

January  10,  1881. — To  let  one's  self  be  troubled  by  the 
ill-will,  the  ingratitude,  the  indifference,  of  others,  is  a 
weakness  to  which  I  am  very  much  inclined.  It  is  painful 
to  me  to  be  misunderstood,  ill-judged.  I  am  wanting  in 
manly  hardihood,  and  the  heart  in  me  is  more  vulnerable 
than  it  ought  to  be.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  I  have 
grown  tougher  in  this  respect  than  I  used  to  be.  The 
malignity  of  the  world  troubles  me  less  than  it  did.  Is  it 
the  result  of  philosophy,  or  an  effect  of  age,  or  simply 
caused  by  the  many  proofs  of  respect  and  attachment  that 
I  have  received?  These  proofs  were  just  what  were  want- 
ing to  inspire  me  with  some  self-respect.  Otherwise  I 
should  have  so  easily  believed  in  my  own  nullity  and  in  the 
insignificance  of  all  my  efforts.  Success  is  necessary  for 
the  timid,  praise  is  a  moral  stimulus,  and  admiration  a 
strengthening  elixir.  We  think  we  know  ourselves,  but 
as  long  as  we  are  ignorant  of  our  comparative  value,  our 
place  in  the  social  assessment,  we  do  not  know  ourselves 
well  enough.  If  we  are  to  act  with  effect,  we  must  count 
for  something  with  our  fellow-men ;  we  must  feel  ourselves 
possessed  of  some  weight  and  credit  with  them,  so  that 
our  effort  may  be  rightly  proportioned  to  the  resistance 
which  has  to  be  overcome.  As  long  as  we  despise  opinion 
we  are  without  a  standard  by  which  to  measure  ourselves; 
we  do  not  know  our  relative  power.  I  have  despised 
opinion  too  much,  while  yet  I  have  been  too  sensitive  to  in- 
justice. These  two  faults  have  cost  me  dear.  I  longed 
for  kindness,  sympathy,  and  equity,  but  my  pride  forbade 
me  to  ask  for  them,  or  to  employ  any  address  or  calcula- 
tion to  obtain  them.  .  .  .  I  do  not  think  I  have  been 
wrong  altogether,  for  all  through  I  have  been  in  harmony 
with  my  best  self,  but  my  want  of  adaptibility  has  worn 
me  out,  to  no  purpose.  Now,  indeed,  I  am  at  peace 
within,  but  my  career  is  over,  my  strength  is  running  out» 
and  my  life  is  near  its  end. 

"  II  n'est  plus  temps  pour  rien  exceote  pour  mourir." 


368  AMIEU8  JOVRNAL. 

This  is  why  I  can  look  at  it  all  historically. 

January  23,  1881. — A  tolerable  night,  but  this  morning 
the  cough  has  been  frightful.  Beautiful  weather,  the 
windows  ablaze  with  sunshine.  With  my  feet  on  the  fen- 
der I  have  just  finished  the  newspaper. 

At  this  moment  I  feel  well,  and  it  seems  strange  to  me 
that  my  doom  should  be  so  near.  Life  has  no  sense  of 
kinship  with  death.  This  is  why,  no  doubt,  a  sort  of 
mechanical  instinctive  hope  is  forever  springing  up  afresh 
in  us,  troubling  our  reason,  and  casting  doubt  on  the  ver- 
dict of  science.  All  life  is  tenacious  and  persistent.  It  is 
like  the  parrot  in  the  fable,  who,  at  the  very  moment 
when  its  neck  is  being  wrung,  still  repeats  with  its  last 
breath : 

*'  Cela,  cela,  ne  sera  rien." 

The  intellect  puts  the  matter  at  its  worst,  but  the  animal 
protests.  It  will  not  believe  in  the  evil  till  it  comes. 
Ought  one  to  regret  it?  Probab.y  not.  It  is  nature's  will 
that  life  should  defend  itself  against  death ;  hope  is  only 
the  love  of  life;  it  is  an  organic  impulse  which  religion  has 
taken  under  its  protection.  Who  knows?  God  may  save 
us,  may  work  a  miracle.  Besides,  are  we  ever  sure  that 
there  is  no  remedy?  Uncertainty  is  the  refuge  of  hope. 
We  reckon  the  doubtful  among  the  chances  in  our  favor. 
Mortal  frailty  clings  to  every  support.  How  be  angry  with 
it  for  so  doing?  Even  with  all  possible  aids  it  hardly  evei 
escapes  desolation  and  distress.  The  supreme  solution  is, 
and  always  will  be,  to  see  in  necessity  the  fatherly  will  of 
God,  and  so  to  submit  ourselves  and  bear  our  cross  bravely, 
as  an  offering  to  the  Arbiter  of  human  destiny.  The  sol- 
dier does  not  dispute  the  order  given  him :  he  obeys  and 
dies  without  murmuring.  If  he  waited  to  understand  the 
use  of  his  sacrifice,  where  would  his  submission  be? 

It  occurred  to  me  this  morning  how  little  we  know  of 
each  other's  physical  troubles ;  even  those  nearest  and  dear- 
est to  us  know  nothing  of  our  conversations  with  the  King 
of  Terrors.    There  arp  thoughts  which  brook  no  confidant  j 


AMIEL' 8  JOURNAL.  369 

there  are  griefs  which  cannot  be  shared.  Consideration  for 
others  even  bids  us  conceal  them.  We  dream  alone,  we 
Buffer  alone,  we  die  alone,  we  inhabit  the  last  resting-place 
alone.  But  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  opening 
our  solitude  to  God.  And  so  what  was  an  austere  mono- 
logue becomes  dialogue,  reluctance  becomes  docility, 
renunciation  passes  into  peace,  and  the  sense  of  painful 
defeat  is  lost  in  the  sense  of  recovered  liberty. 

"  Vouloir  se  que  Dieu  veut  est  la  seule  science 
Qui  nous  met  en  repos." 

None  of  us  can  escape  the  play  of  contrary  impulse;  but  as 
soon  as  the  soul  has  once  recognized  the  order  of  things, 
and  submitted  itself  thereto,  then  all  is  well. 

"  Comme  un  sage  mourant  puissions  nous  dire  en  pais: 
J'ai  trop  longtemps  erre,  cherche;  je  me  trompais: 
Tout  est  bien,  mon  Dieu  m'enveloppe." 

January  28,  1881. — A  terrible  night.  For  three  or  four 
hours  I  struggled  against  suffocation  and  looked  death  in 
the  face.  ...  It  is  clear  that  what  awaits  me  is 
suffocation — asphyxia.     I  shall  die  by  choking. 

I  should  not  have  chosen  such  a  death;  but  when  there 
is  no  option,  one  must  simply  resign  one's  self,  and  ai 
once.  .  .  .  Spinoza  expired  in  the  presence  of  the  doc- 
tor whom  he  had  sent  for.  I  must  familiarize  myself  with 
the  idea  of  dying  unexpectedly,  some  fine  night,  strangled 
by  laryngitis.  The  last  sigh  of  a  patriarch  surrounded  by 
his  kneeling  family  is  more  beautiful:  my  fate  indeed  lacks 
beauty,  grandeur,  poetry;  but  stoicism  consists  in  renun- 
ciation.    Ahstine  et  sustine. 

I  must  remember  besides  that  I  have  faithful  friends;  it 
is  better  not  to  torment  them.  The  last  journey  is  only 
made  more  painful  by  scenes  and  lamentations:  one  word 
is  worth  all  others — "Thy  will,  not  mine,  be  done!" 
Leibnitz  was  accompanied  to  the  grave  by  his  servant  only. 
The  loneliness  of  the  deathbed  and  the  tomb  is  not  an 
evil.  The  great  mystery  cannot  be  shared.  The  dialogue 
between  the  soul  and  the  King  of  Terrors  needs  no  wit- 


370  AMI RU 8  JOURNAL. 

nesses.  It  is  the  living  who  cling  to  the  thought  of  last 
greetings  And,  after  all,  no  one  knows  exactly  what  is 
reserved  for  him.  What  will  be  will  be.  We  have  but  to 
say,  "Amen." 

February  4,  1881. — It  is  a  strange  sensation  that  of  lay- 
ing one's  self  down  to  rest  with  the  thought  that  perhaps 
one  will  never  see  the  morrow.  Yesterday  I  felt  it 
strongly,  and  yet  here  I  am.  Humility  is  made  easy  by 
the  sense  of  excessive  frailty,  but  it  cuts  away  all  ambition. 

"  Quittez  le  long  espoir  et  les  vastes  pensees." 

A  long  piece  of  work  seems  absurd — one  lives  but  from 
day  to  day. 

When  a  man  can  no  longer  look  forward  in  imagination 
to  five  years,  a  year,  a  month,  of  free  activity — when  he 
is  reduced  to  counting  the  hours,  and  to  seeing  in  the  com- 
ing night  the  threat  of  an  unknown  fate — it  is  plain  that 
he  must  give  up  art,  science,  and  politics,  and  that  he  must 
be  content  to  hold  converse  with  himself,  the  one  possi- 
bility which  is  his  till  the  end.  Inward  soliloquy  is  the 
only  resource  of  the  condemned  man  whose  execution  is 
delayed.  He  withdraws  upon  the  fastnesses  of  conscience. 
His  spiritual  force  no  longer  radiates  outwardly ;  it  is  con- 
sumed in  self-study.  Action  is  cut  off — only  contempla- 
tion remains.  He  still  writes  to  those  who  have  claims 
upon  him,  but  he  bids  farewell  to  the  public,  and  retreats 
into  himself.  Like  the  hare,  he  comes  back  to  die  in  his 
form,  and  this  form  is  his  consciousness,  his  intellect — 
the  journal,  too,  which  has  been  the  companion  of  his 
inner  life.  As  long  as  he  can  hold  a  pen,  as  long  as  he  has' 
a  moment  of  solitude,  this  echo  of  himself  still  claims  his' 
meditation,  still  represents  to  him  his  converse  with  his 
God. 

In  all  this,  however,  there  is  nothing  akin  to  self-exami- 
nation :  it  is  not  an  act  of  contrition,  or  a  cry  for  help.  It 
is  simply  an  Amen  of  submission — "  My  child,  give  me  thy 
heart!" 

Renunciation  and  acquiescence  are  less  difficult  to  me 


AMIEL'S  JOURNAL.  371 

than  to  others,  for  I  desire  nothing.  I  could  only  wish  not 
to  suffer,  but  Jesus  on  Gethesemane  allowed  himself  to 
make  the  same  prayer;  let  us  add  to  it  the  words  that  he 
did:  "Nevertheless,  not  my  will,  but  thine,  be  done," — 
and  wait. 

.  .  .  For  many  years  past  the  immanent  God  has 
been  more  real  to  me  than  the  transcendent  God,  and  the 
religion  of  Jacob  has  been  more  alien  to  me  than  that  of 
Kant,  or  even  Spinoza.  The  whole  Semitic  dramaturgy 
has  come  to  seem  to  me  a  work  of  the  imagination.  The 
apostolic  documents  have  changed  in  value  and  meaning 
to  my  eyes.  Belief  and  truth  have  become  distinct  to  me 
with  a  growing  distinctness.  Religious  psychology  has 
become  a  simple  phenomenon,  and  has  lost  its  fixed  and 
absolute  value.  The  apologetics  of  Pascal,  of  Leibnitz,  of 
Secretan,  are  to  me  no  more  convincing  than  those  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  for  they  presuppose  what  is  really  in  ques- 
tion— a  revealed  doctrine,  a  definite  and  unchangeable 
Christianity.  It  seems  to  me  that  what  remains  to  me 
from  all  my  studies  is  a  new  phenomenology  of  mind, 
an  intuition  of  universal  metamorphosis.  All  particular 
convictions,  all  definite  principles,  all  clear-cut  formulas 
and  fixed  ideas,  are  but  prejudices,  useful  in  practice,  but 
still  narrownesses  of  the  mind.  The  absolute  in  detail  is 
absurd  and  contradictory.  All  political,  religious,  aBsthetic, 
or  literary  parties  are  protuberances,  misgrowths  of 
thought.  Every  special  belief  represents  a  stiffening  and 
thickening  of  thought;  a  stiffening,  however,  which  is 
necessary  in  its  time  and  place.  Our  monad,  in  its  think- 
ing capacity,  overleaps  the  boundaries  of  time  and  space 
and  of  its  own  historical  surroundings;  but  in  its  individual 
CMpacity,  and  for  purposes  of  action,  it  adapts  itself  to  cur- 
rent illusions,  and  puts  before  itself  a  definite  end.  It  is 
lawful  to  be  mail,  but  it  is  needful  also  to  be  a  man,  to  be 
an  individual.  Our  role  is  thus  a  double  one.  Only,  the 
philosopher  is  specially  authorized  to  develop  the  first  role, 
which  the  vast  majority  of  humankind  neglects. 

February  7,  1881. — Beautiful  sunshine  to-day.     But  I. 


3:3  AMIRU 8  JOURNAL. 

have  scarcely  spring  enough  left  in  me  to  notice  it.  Ad- 
miration, joy,  presuppose  a  little  relief  from  pain.  Whereas 
my  neck  is  tired  with  the  weight  of  my  head,  and  my  heart 
is  wearied  with  the  weight  of  life;  this  is  not  the  aesthetic 
state. 

I  have  been  thinking  over  different  things  which  I 
might,  have  written.  But  generally  speaking  we  let  what 
is  most  original  and  best  in  us  be  wasted.  We  reserve 
ourselves  for  a  future  which  never  comes.     Omnis  moriar. 

February  14,  1881. — Supposing  that  my  weeks  are  num- 
bered, what  duties  still  remain  to  me  to  fulfill,  that  I  may 
leave  all  in  order?  I  must  give  every  one  his  due;  justice, 
prudence,  kindness  must  be  satisfied;  the  last  memories 
must  be  sweet  ones.  Try  to  forget  nothing  useful,  nor 
anybody  who  has  a  claim  upon  thee! 

February  15,  1881. — I  have,  very  reluctantly,  given  up 
my  lecture  at  the  university,  and  sent  for  my  doctor.     On 

my  chimney-piece  are  the  flowers  which has  sent  me. 

Letters  from  London,  Paris,  Lausanne,  Neuchdtel  .  .  . 
They  seem  to  me  like  wreaths  thrown  into  a  grave. 

Mentally  I  say  farewell  to  all  the  distant  friends  whom  i 
shall  never  see  again. 

February  18,  1881. — Misty  weather.  A  fairly  good 
night.  Still,  the  emaciation  goes  on.  That  is  to  say,  the 
vulture  allows  me  some  respite,  but  he  still  hovers  over  his 
prey.  The  possibility  of  resuming  my  official  work  seems 
like  a  dream  to  me. 

Although  just  now  the  sense  of  ghostly  remoteness  from 
life  which  I  so  often  have  is  absent,  I  feel  myself  a  prisoner 
for  good,  a  hopeless  invalid.  This  vague  intermediate 
state,  which  is  neither  death  nor  life,  has  its  sweetness, 
because  if  it  implies  renunciation,  still  it  allows  of  thought. 
It  is  a  reverie  without  pain,  peaceful  and  meditative.  Sur- 
rounded with  affection  and  with  books,  I  float  down  the 
stream  of  time,  as  once  I  glided  over  the  Dutch  canals, 
smoothly  and  noiselessly.  It  is  as  though  I  were  once 
more  on  board  the  Treckschute.  Scarcely  can  one  hear 
even  the  soft  ripple  of  the  water  furrowed  by  the  baige,  or 


AMIEL'8  JOURNAL.  37a 

the  hoof  of  the  towing  horse  trotting  along  the  sandy  path. 
A  journey  under  these  conditions  has  something  fantastic 
in  it.  One  is  not  sure  whether  one  still  exists,  still 
belongs  to  earth.  It  is  like  the  manes,  the  shadows,  flitting 
through  the  twilight  of  the  inania  regna.  Existence  has 
become  fluid.  From  the  standpoint  of  complete  personal 
renunication  I  watch  the  passage  of  my  impressions,  my 
dreams,  thoughts,  and  memories.  .  .  .  It  is  a  mood 
of  fixed  contemplation  akin  to  that  which  we  attribute  to 
the  seraphim.  It  takes  no  interest  in  the  individual  self, 
but  only  in  the  specimen  monad,  the  sample  of  the  general 
history  of  mind.  Everything  is  in  everything,  and  the 
consciousiless  examines  what  it  has  before  it.  Nothing  is 
either  great  or  small.  The  mind  adopts  all  modes,  and 
everything  is  acceptable  to  it.  In  this  state  its  relations 
with  the  body,  with  the  outer  world,  and  with  other  indi- 
viduals, fade  out  of  sight.  Selhst-hewusstsein  becomes 
once  more  impersonal  Bewusstsein,  and  before  personality 
can  be  reacquired,  pain,  duty,  and  will  must  be  brought 
into  action. 

Are  these  oscillations  between  the  personal  and  the  im- 
personal, between  pantheism  and  theism,  between  Spinoza 
and  Leibnitz,  to  be  regretted?  No,  for  it  is  the  one  state 
which  makes  us  conscious  of  the  other.  And  as  man  is 
capable  of  ranging  the  two  domains,  why  should  he  muti- 
late himself? 

February  22,  1881. — The  march  of  mind  finds  its  typical 
expression  in  astronomy — no  pause,  but  no  hurry ;  orbits, 
cycles,  energy,  but  at  the  same  time  harmony;  movement 
and  yet  order;  everything  has  its  own  weight  and  its  rela- 
tive weight,  receives  and  gives  forth  light.  Cannot  this 
cosmic  and  divine  become  oars?  Is  the  war  of  all  against 
all,  the  preying  of  man  upon  man,  a  higher  type  of 
balanced  action?  I  shrink  form  believing  it.  Some 
theorists  imagine  that  the  phase  of  selfish  brutality  is  the 
last  phase  of  all.  They  must  be  wrong.  Justice  will 
prevail,  and  justice  is  not  selfishness.  Independence  of 
intellect,  combined  with  goodness  of  heart,  will  be  the 
agents  of  a  result,  which  will  be  the  compromise  required. 


374.  AMIEUS  JOURNAL. 

March  1,  1881. — I  have  just  been  glancing  over  the 
affairs  of  the  world  in  the  newspaper.  What  a  Babel  it  is ! 
But  it  is  very  pleasant  to  be  able  to  make  the  tour  of  the 
planet  and  review  the  human  race  in  an  hour.  It  gives 
one  a  sense  of  ubiquity.  A  newspaper  in  the  twentieth 
century  will  be  composed  of  eight  or  ten  daily  bulletins — i 
political,  religious,  scientific,  literary,  artistic,  commercial, 
meteorological,  military,  economical,  social,  legal,  and 
financial;  and  will  be  divided  into  two  parts  only — Urhs 
and  Orhis.  The  need  of  totalizing,  of  simplifying,  will 
bring  about  the  general  use  of  such  graphic  methods  as 
permit  of  series  and  comparisons.  We  shall  end  by  feeling 
the  pulse  of  the  race  and  the  globe  as  easily  as  that  of  a 
sick  man,  and  we  shall  count  the  palpitations  of  the  uni- 
versal life,  just  as  we  shall  hear  the  grass  growing,  or  the 
sunspots  clashing,  and  catch  the  first  stirrings  of  volcanic 
disturbances.  Activity  will  become  consciousness;  the 
earth  will  see  herself.  Then  will  be  the  time  for  her  to 
blush  for  her  disorders,  her  hideousness,  her  misery,  her 
■crime — and  to  throw  herself  at  last  with  energy  and  per- 
severance into  the  pursuit  of  justice.  When  humanity  has 
€ut  its  wisdom-teeth,  then  perhaps  it  will  have  the  grace 
to  reform  itself,  and  the  will  to  attempt  a  systematic 
reduction  of  the  share  of  the  evil  in  the  world.  The 
Weltgeist  will  pass  from  the  state  of  instinct  to  the  moral 
state.  War,  hatred,  selfishness,  fraud,  the  right  of  the 
stronger,  will  be  held  to  be  old-world  barbarisms,  mere 
diseases  of  growth.  The  pretenses  of  modern  civilization 
will  be  replaced  by  real  virtues.  Men  will  be  brothers, 
peoples  will  be  friends,  races  will  sympathize  one  with 
another,  and  mankind  will  draw  from  love  a  principle  of 
emulation,  of  invention,  and  of  zeal,  as  powerful  as  any 
furnished  by  the  vulgar  stimulant  of  interest.  This 
millennium — will  it  ever  be?  It  is  at  least  an  act  of  piety 
to  believe  in  it. 

March  14,  1881. — I  have  finished  Merim6e's  letters  to 
Panizzi.  Merim^e  died  of  the  disease  which  torments  me 
— "Je    tousse,    et    jeHouffe."     Bronchitis   and    asthma, 


amiel':j  journal.  375 

whence  defective  assimilation,  and  finally  exhaustion.  He, 
too,  tried  arsenic,  wintering  at  Cannes,  compressed  air. 
All  was  useless.  Suifocation  and  inanition  carried  ofE  the 
author  of  "Colomba."  Hie  tua  res  agitur.  The  gray, 
heavy  sky  is  of  the  same  color  as  my  thoughts.  And  yet 
the  irrevocable  has  its  own  sweetness  and  serenity.  The 
fluctuations  of  illusion,  the  uncertainties  of  desire,  the 
leaps  and  bounds  of  hope,  give  place  to  tranquil  resigna- 
tion. One  feels  as  though  one  were  already  beyond  the 
grave.  It  is  this  very  week,  too,  I  remember,  that  my 
corner  of  ground  in  the  Oasis  is  to  be  bought.  Everything 
draws  toward  the  end.     Festinat  ad  eventum. 

March  15, 1881.— The  "Journal"  is  full  of  details  of  the 
horrible  affair  at  Petersburg.  How  clear  it  is  that  such 
catastrophes  as  this,  in  which  the  innocent  suffer,  are  the 
product  of  a  long  accumulation  of  iniquities.  Historical 
justice  is,  generally  speaking,  tardy — so  tardy  that  it  be- 
comes unjust.  The  Providential  theory  is  really  based  on 
human  solidarity.  Louis  XVI.  pays  for  Louis  XV.,  Alex- 
ander II.  for  Nicholas.  We  expiate  the  sins  of  our  fathers, 
and  our  grandchildren  will  be  punished  for  ours.  A  double 
injustice!  cries  the  individual.  And  he  is  right  it  the 
individualist  principle  is  true.  But  is  it  true?  That  is 
the  point.  It  seems  as  though  the  individual  part  of 
each  man's  destiny  were  but  one  section  of  that  des- 
tiny. Morally  we  are  responsible  for  what  we  (ourselves 
have  willed,  but  socially,  our  happiness  and  unhappiness 
depend  on  causes  outside  our  will.  Keligion  answers — 
"Mystery,  obscurity,  submission,  faith.  Do  your  duty; 
leave  the  rest  to  God." 

March  16,  1881. — A  wretched  night.  A  melancholy 
morning.  .  .  .  The  two  stand-bys  of  the  doctor, 
digitalis  and  bromide,  seem  to  have  lost  their  power  over 
me.  Wearily  and  painfully  I  watch  the  tedious  progress  of 
my  own  decay.  What  efforts  to  keep  one's  self  from 
dying!     I  am  worn  out  with  the  struggle. 

Useless  and  incessant  struggle  is  a  humiliation  to  one's 
manhood.     The  lion  finds  the  gnat  the  most  intolerable  of 


3%  AMIEL'S  JOURNAL. 

his  foes.  The  natural  man  feels  the  same.  But  the 
spiritual  man  must  learn  the  lesson  of  gentleness  and  long- 
suffering.  The  inevitable  is  the  will  of  God.  We  might 
have  preferred  something  else,  but  it  is  our  business  to 
accept  the  lot  assigned  us.  .  .  .  One  thing  only  is 
necessary — 

"  Garde  en  mon  cceur  la  foi  dans  ta  volonte  sainte, 
Et  de  moi  fais,  6  Dieu,  tout  ce  que  tu  voudras." 

Later. — One  of  my  students  has  just  brought  me  a  sym- 
pathetic message  from  my  class.     My  sister  sends  me  a  pot 

of  azaleas,  rich  in  flowers  and  buds; sends  roses  and 

violets:  every  one  spoils  me,  which  proves  that  I  am  ill. 

March  19,  1881. — Distaste — discouragement.  My  heart 
is  growing  cold.  And  yet  what  affectionate  care,  what 
tenderness,  surrounds  me!  .  .  .  But  without  health, 
what  can  one  do  with  all  the  rest?  What  is  the  good  of  it 
all  to  me?  What  was  the  good  of  Job's  trials?  They 
ripened  his  patience ;  they  exercised  his  submission. 

Come,  let  me  forget  myself,  let  me  shake  off  this  melan- 
choly, this  weariness.  Let  me  think,  not  of  all  that  is  lost, 
but  of  all  that  I  might  still  lose.  I  will  reckon  up  my 
privileges;  I  will  try  to  be  worthy  of  my  blessings. 

March  21,  1881. — This  invalid  life  is  too  Epicurean. 
For  five  or  six  weeks  now  I  have  done  nothing  else  but 
wait,  nurse  myself,  and  amuse  myself,  and  how  weary  one 
gets  of  it !  What  I  want  is  work.  It  is  work  which  gives 
flavor  to  life.  Mere  existence  without  object  and  without 
effort  is  a  poor  thing.  Idleness  leads  to  languor,  and 
languor  to  disgust.  Besides,  here  is  the  spring  again,  the 
season  of  vague  desires,  of  dull  discomforts,  of  dim  aspira- 
tions, of  sighs  without  a  cause.  We  dream  wide-awake. 
We  search  darkly  for  we  know  not  what;  invoking  the 
while  something  which  has  ho  name,  unless  it  be  happiness 
or  death. 

March  28,  1881. — I  cannot  work;  I  find  it  difficult  to 
exist.  One  may  be  glad  to  let  one's  friends  spoil  one  for  a 
few  months ;  it  is  an  experience  which  is  good  for  us  all ; 


AMIEUS  JOURNAL.  377 

but  afterward?  How  much  better  to  make  room  for  the 
living,  the  active,  the  productive. 

"  Tircis,  void  le  temps  de  prendre  sa  retraite." 
Is  it   that  I  care  so  much  to  go  on  living?     I  think  not. 
It  is  health   that  1  long  for — freedom    from   suffering. 

And  this  desire  being  vafn,  I  can  find  no  savor  in  any- 
thing else.  Satiety.  Lassitude.  Renunciation.  Abdica- 
tion.    "In  your  patience  possess  ye  your  souls." 

April  10, 1881.   [Sunday). — Visit  to .     She  read  over 

to  me  letters  of  1844  to  1845 — letters  of  mine.  So  much 
promise  to  end  in  so  meager  a  result!  What  creatures  we 
are !  I  shall  end  like  the  Rhine,  lost  among  ttie  sands,  and 
the  hour  is  close  by  when  my  thread  of  water  will  have 
disappeared. 

Afterward  I  had  a  little  walk  in  the  sunset.  There  was 
an  effect  of  scattered  rays  and  stormy  clouds;  a  green  haze 
envelops  all  the  trees — 

"  Et  tout  renait,  et  deja  I'aubepine 
A  vu  I'abeille  accourir  a  ses  fleurs," 

—but  to  me  it  all  seems  strange  already. 

Later. — What  dupes  we  are  of  our  own  desires!  .  .  . 
Destiny  has  two  ways  of  crushing  us — by  refusing  our 
wishes  and  by  fulfilling  them.  But  he  who  only  wills  what 
God  wills  escapes  both  catastrophes.  "All  things  work 
together  for  his  good." 

April  14,  1881.— Frightful  night;  the  fourteenth 
"unning,  in  which  I  have  been  consumed  by  sleepless- 
ness.    .     .     . 

April  15,  1881. — To-morrow  is  Good  Friday,  the  festival 
of  pain.  I  know  what  it  is  to  spend  days  of  anguish  and 
nights  of  agony.  Let  me  bear  my  cross  humbly.  .  .  . 
I  have  no  more  future.  My  duty  is  to  satisfy  the  claims 
of  the  present,  and  to  leave  everything  in  order.  Let  me 
try  to  end  well,  seeing  that  to  undertake  and  even  to  con- 
tinue, are  closed  to  me. 

April  19,  1881. — A  terrible  sense  of  oppression.  M/ 
flesh  and  my  heart  fail  me. 

*'Que  vivre  est  difficile,  6  mon  coeur  fatiguel" 


INDEX. 


About's  satire  and  irony,  170. 

Absolute,  Amiel's  craving  for  the,  55;  conception  of  the, '275,  294. 

Absolutism,  218. 

Accident,  philosophy  of  67,  68;  and  Providence,  174. 

Ackermann,  poems  of  Madame,  274. 

Acorn  and  Oak,  358. 

Action,  Amiel's  cross,  102;  =:Concrete  thought,  5;  how  to  recover  cour- 
age for;  40,  requisites,  for,  344. 

Activity  of  the  Western  Nations,  unholy,  337. 

Adoration  and  consolation  essential  in  religion,  101. 

Advice,  giving,  245. 

^schylus'  and  "Prometheus  Eumenides,"  256. 

Affected  poets,  317. 

Affirmation  and  examination,  249. 

Age,  loss  of  respect  for,  130;  the  servitude  of,  191. 

Alcibiades,  298. 

Algebra  v.  life,  232. 

All  or  nothing,  275. 

Alps,  the,  55,  164  221. 

Ambition,  Amiel's  horror  of,  106,  293;  moral,  211. 

Americans,  the,  387. 

Amusement  and  instruction,  332. 

Analysis,  extreme,  104;  kills  spontaneity,  324;  of  self,  Amiel's,  158, 
woman's  dislike  of,  173. 

Analytic  minds,  166. 

Anger,  conquest  of,  360. 

Animality,  the  laws  of,  300. 

Animals,  treatment  of,  156. 

Annihilation  of  Buddha,  194. 

Anonymous  souls,  199. 

Ant  V.  swallow,  80. 

A  priori  speculations,  249. 

Arcadia,  an  expedition  into,  281. 

Aristotle,  294. 

Art,  decadence  of,  180;  grand  and  simple,  318;  and  imagination,  323, 
reveals  Nature,  104. 

Ascension  Day.  332. 

*'  Atala  "  and  "  Rene,"  Chateaubriand's,  83,  84. 

Atheism,  effects  of,  300. 

Atomism,  philosophy  of,  131. 

Attila,  341. 

Augustine  and  Lucian  contrasted,  302. 

Authority  v.  liberty,  199. 

Autumn,  melancholy  of,  278;  of  life.  183;  two-fold,  127. 


380  INDEX 

Azote,  woman  the  social,  256. 

Babble,  ignorant,  815. 

Bach's  prelude,  50. 

Bacon  on  religion,  144. 

Babnsen's  pessimism,  244. 

Balzac,  232. 

Banniere,  Bleue,  la,  341, 

Banter  not  humor,  359. 

Barbarism,  possible  triumph  of,  182. 

Basle,  225. 

Bayle  and  Saint  Simon,  205. 

Beauty,   female,  171;  v.  goodness,  302;  and  pathos,  86,  87;  and  agli- 

ness,  244;  universal  in  Paradise,  132. 
Beauty     =the  spiritualization  of  matter,  133. 
Beethoven  and  Mozart  contrasted,  50. 
Being  consciousness  of,   353,  and  non-being,  334. 
Beranger,  207. 
Berkeley,  27. 

Berlioz,  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  809. 
Bevnisstsein,  373. 
Biedermann  on  Strauss,  361. 
Biran's  Journal,  78,  79. 
Birds  in  bad  weather,  158. 
Bismarcli,  174. 
Biases  of  the  world,  348. 
Boileau  and  Fontaine  contrasted,  310. 
Book,  function  of  the,  313. 
Bossuet  on  charity,  329. 

Bourse,  movements  of  the  (the  beat  of  the  common  heart),  151. 
Brahma,  226,  his  dream,  167. 
Brahmanic  aspirations,  287. 
Brahmanizing  souls,  344. 
Brain  decay,  Amiel's,  303. 
Buddha,  223,  method  of,  866. 
Buddhism,  194,  208,  274. 
Buddhist  tendency  of  Amiel,  155. 
Buisson,  199. 

Caesarism  the  counterpoise  of  equality,  131. 

Cartesian  dualism,  248 

Catholic  superstition,  259 

Catholicism,  53,  essence  of,  122;  and  revolution,  217. 

Causeriea  Athenienes,  Cherbuliez,  100. 

Cellerier  on  St.  James,  31. 

Chance  and  Providence,  174. 

Change  not  improvement,  143;  persistence  in,  229;  rules  the  world, 

123. 
Changeable  character,  Amiel's  159,  172. 
Character,  how  to  judge,  359;  temperament,  and  individuality,  204; 

and  will,  Amiel's  lack  of,  102. 
Charity,  democratic  character  of,  328. 
Charm,  243. 


INDEX.  381 

Chateaubriand,  83,  189;  and  Rousseau,  83. 

Oherbuliez,   178;  Mephistophelian  novel,  302;  on  chivalry,  etc.,  99, 

125. 
Cherry  trees  and  lilacs,  2. 
Childhood,  Amiel's  second,  125;  blessings  of,  169;  first  conversations 

of,  31 ;  revived  impressions  of,  273. 
Children.  86. 

Chivalry,  Cherbuliez  on,  99. 
Christendom  and  Ascension  Day,  332. 

Christian  nations,  aspiration  of,  299;  preaching,  confusions  of,  270. 
Christianity  a  vast  ocean,  188;  different  aspects  of,  188;  essence  of,  47. 

from  a  human  point  of  view,   184;   historical  aspects  of,   247; 

liberal,  197;  of  dignity  instead  of  humility,  98;  and  reconciliation, 

334;  V.  religion,  153;  task  of,  4,  5,  42;  true,  122. 
Church  and  State,  proper  aims  of,  329;  separation,  rejected  by  the 

Qenevese  people,  348. 
Churches  (the)  and  Jesns,  178. 
Churchyard,  reflections  in  a,  276. 
"  Oid  "  and  "Rodogune,"  artificiality  of,  112. 
Circumstances,  force  of,  290;  influence  of,  131. 
Civilization,  corrupting  tendency  of,  342;  confounded  with  the  inner 

life,  53;  in  the  light  of  religion,  209. 
Claparede,  Edouard,  166. 
Classification  of  men,  twofold,  363. 
Cleanthus,  195. 
Cleons,  modern,  122. 
Clever  folk  defined,  319. 
Cleverness,  negative  character  of,  170. 
Cohabitation  of  individuals,  man's  chief  problem,  828. 
Cohesion  essential  to  society,  157. 
Comic  poets,  role  of  the,  302. 

Common  sense,  44;  v.  the  ideal,  71;  rebellion  against,  274. 
Common  sense  worship,  26. 
Commune  of  Paris,  238. 
Compliance,  good-humored,  266. 

Composition,  Amiel's  laborious,  287;  the  process  of,  318. 
Compound  character  of  Amiel,  201. 
Condorcet's  theory,  52. 
Conflict,  man's  perpetual,  307. 
Conscience,  255;   abdication  of  the,  217;  appeal  of,  10,  12;  v.  clever- 

ness,  301;  corruption  of  the,  136;  and  faith,  60;   and  history,  21; 

individualized  by,  145;  v.  reality,  212;  v.  taste,  331;  the  voice  of 

God,  330. 
Consciousness  compared  to  a  book,  273. 

"Consideration,"  definition  of,  284;  unsought  by  Amiel,  285. 
Constant,  Benjamin,  284. 

Contemplation,  Amiel's  milieu,  173;  contrasted  with  action,  173;  pas- 
sionate temperament  incapable  of,  166. 
Contentment,  356;  apostolic,  181;  and  submission,  279. 
Contradictory  aspirations,  300. 
Contraries,  marriage  of,  290. 
Coppee,  Francois,  290. 
Coquerel,  199. 


382  INDEX. 

"Corinne,"80. 

Corneille's  heroes,  rSles  not  men,  118 

Courage,  Amiel's  want  of,  261. 

Creation,  the  act  of,  289- 

Credulity,  freedom  from,  157. 

Creed,  Amiel's  want  of  a,  268. 

Critic,  the,  44;  the  conscientious,  86;  the  true,  200,  207,  319,  320, 
323. 

Critical  faculty,  abuse  of  the,  65;  lucidity,  250. 

Criticism  a  gift,  320;  indifferent,  110. 

Cross,  apotheosis  of  the,  214,  215;  (one's)  made  heavier  by  repul- 
sion, 7. 

Crowd  (the)  and  the  individual,  145;  instinct  and  passion  of  the,  272. 

Crowd  worship,  129. 

Crucifixion,  the,  214. 

Culture,  modern,  324. 

Cynic,  egotism  of  the,  228. 

Dante,  47;  in  hell,  138. 

Darwinism,  314;  counterpoised  by  equality,  331;  inconsistencies 
of,  300. 

Dead  and  living,  the,  276;  want  of  respect  for  the,  100. 

Death,  58;  Amiel's  anticipation  of,  369,  370,  371;  anticipation  of,  321, 
322;  certainty  of,  95;  death  of,  214;  speculations  respecting,  273. 

De  Candolle,  180. 

Democracy  unfavorable  to  high  art,  166;  evil  results  of,  179;  fickle- 
ness of,  237;  fiction  of,  130,  237;  results  of,  346;  weakness  of, 
227 

Democratic  era,  18,  129,  130. 

Demos,  stupidity  of,  237. 

Dependence  and  liberty,  152. 

Depersonalization,  Amiel's,  352. 

Descartes  on  fame,  299. 

Desert,  the  traveler  of  the,  339. 

Desolation  and  daylight,  258. 

Despair,  resignation  of,  280. 

Despotic  government  and  intellectual  anarchy,  157. 

Despotism,  152;  and  materialism,  35;  of  Russia,  69. 

Detritus  of  past  eras,  262. 

Diderot,  177. 

"Die  unto  sin,"  90. 

Discontentment,  86. 

Discouragement,  Amiel's  sin,  102. 

Discremen  ingeniorum,  48. 

Disraeli's  "  Lothair,"  216. 

Distilled  history,  295. 

Divine,  glimpses  of  the,  60;  and  human  anion,  187;  will,  acceptation 
of  the,  305. 

Divinity,  multiplication  of,  354. 

Doctor,  the  model,  266. 

Doctors,  causes  of  their  mistakes,  265. 

Dollar,  the  almighty,  214. 

Double,  a  characteristic  of  perfection,  127. 


INDEX.  383 

Double-faced  life,  13. 

Doubt,  89;  and  atheism,  187;  and  obedience,  158L 

Doudan's  Lettres  et  Melanges,  297,  299 

Dragonfly  symbol,  341, 

Dream-aspect  of  life,  126. 

Dreaming,  87. 

Dreamland  and  action,  344. 

Dreams,  186;  helpfulness  of,  101. 

Duped,  fear  of  being,  187. 

Dupes,  mental,  291. 

Dutchman,  twofold  aspect  of  the,  264. 

Duty,  4,  13,  76,  89,  228,  355;  double  power  of,  5;  ignored  by  both 
"equality  and  Darwinism,  331;  negative,  230;  and  pleasure,  286; 
power  of  the  idea  of,  108;  the  human  pole-star,  169;  the  sign  of 
nobility,  152,  the  maticunt  of  life,  192;  and  trial,  148;  v.  the  in- 
dividual, 374. 

Dying,  words  and  looks  of  the,  185,  186. 

East  and  West  contrasted,  143, 

Ecclesiastical  struggles,  worthlessness  of,  153. 

Education  and  development,  229,  230. 

Effect,  the  misfortune  of  Victor  Hugo,  114. 

Effort  of  modern  morality,  230. 

Ego,  Claparede's  view  of  the,  166. 

Egotism,  18,  22. 

Eighteenth  century  criticism,  270. 

Emerson's  ideal,  22,  27. 

English  children,  251;  homes,  attractiveness  of,  250. 

Englishmen,  twofold  character  of,  150. 

Enthusiasm,  cultivation  of,  121;  two  forms  of,  258. 

Enthusiastic  women,  258. 

Epicureanism,  intellectual,  108. 

Epicurism,  208. 

Epicurus,  335. 

Epigrammatic  productions,  359. 

Equality  a  bad   principle,  122,  131;    doctrines,  236;    of  functions, 

American,  213;  results  of,  17,  18,  179,  328;  the  counterpoise  of 

Darwinism.  331. 
Equilibrium  of  forces,  68. 
"  Errare,  humanum  est,"  343. 
Error,  emancipation  from,  250. 
Errors,  moral  and  psychological,  270. 
E  sempre  bene,  355. 
Esoteric  beauty,  242. 
Esprit  defined,  325. 
Essay,  function  of  the,  313. 
Etrangeres,  Amiel's,  291 
Evil,  problem  of,  193;  transfiguration  of,  55;   ignored  by  Pellet*n» 

52;  by  V.  Hugo,  114. 
Examination  v.  atfirmation,  249. 
Example,  a  good,  236;  importance  of,  32. 
Exi.stence,  submission  to  the  laws  of,  267. 
Experience,  individual  and  collective,  269. 


384  INDEX 

Extempore  preachers,  268. 
Extremes,  reconciliation  of,  253. 

Fair  mindedness,  rarity  of,  305. 

Fairy  tales,  their  truth,  27. 

Faiii  ce  que  dots,  admenne  que  pourra,  330. 

Faith  defined,  246,  has  no  proofs,  336;  narrow  v.  enlightened,  247; 
of  the  present,  the,  299,  and  science,  216;  and  truth,  246. 

False  flag  of  Christendom,  301,  originality,  310,  shame,  Amiel's, 
261. 

Fame,  achievement  of,  299. 

Family  life,  value  of,  251. 

Fanatics,  Indian,  189 

Fastidivm,  how  to  avoid,  354. 

"  Faust,"  89. 

Feeling  v.  irony,  301;  precedes  will,  50;  respect  for,  28. 

Feeling,  suppression  of,  228,  234,  the  bread  of  angels,  135,  and 
thought.  258. 

Feminine  nature,  infirmity  of  the,  259. 

F^eattnat  ad  eoentum,  375. 

Feuerbach,  15 

Feudle  Centrale  de  Zofingen,  354. 

Fial  justitta,  pereat  mundus,  218. 

Fichte,  21,  167. 

Finite,  and  infinite,  276. 

Flanene,  30 

Flattery  of  the  multitude,  271. 

Fog,  poetry  of,  l4b. 

Fontaine's  defects  and  beauties,  810. 

Fontanes,  199. 

Fools,  behavior  toward,  58. 

Force,  external,  300 

Forces,  opposing,  68 

Fragmentary  contemplation,  324. 

France,  Christianity  m,  311,  fundamental  error  of,  259,  v.  Geneva, 
352,  and  Germany,  234;  philosophic  superficiality  of,  53,  the 
center  of  the  world,  165. 

Francis  of  Ass'si,  156 

Frankness  and  self-knowledge,  women  deficient  in,  186. 

Freethinkers,  puerility  of  the,  217. 

Freethought,  republic  of,  270. 

French  Academy,  eloquence  of  the,  283,  drama,  an  oratorical  tourna- 
ment, 113,  and  German  literature  contrasted,  177,  ignorance  of 
liberty,  221.  literary  method,  221;  love  of  aesthetics,  313;  mind, 
106,  280,  philosophy,  81,  poets,  modem,  317,  symbolical  authoritj 
of  the,  221,  republicanism,  224,  vivacity  of  the,  113. 

Friends,  choice  of,  362 

Future  state,  mystery  of  the  161,  201. 

Gayety  and  sadness,  818. 

Galiani,  177. 

Gallery,  playing  to  the,  281.  285. 


INDEX.  385 

Galley-slaves,  modern,  230. 

Geneva,  appeal  to,  348;  characteristics  of,  349;  v.  France,  352;  oath  of 
old,  367. 

Genevese  Liberalism,  82. 

Genghis  Ehan,  841. 

Genius  and  talent,  75;  writers  of,  206. 

Gentleman  defined,  148,  149;  the  Shibboleth  of  England,  148. 

German  and  French  literature  contrasted,  178;  novels,  233;  society, 
vulgarity  of,  238;  thinkers,  their  repugnance  to  public  life,  39. 

Germanic  mind,  tendency  of  the,  315. 

Germans,  artistic  devotion  of  the,  315;  the  masters  of  the  philosophy 
of  life,  68. 

Germany  and  France,  234. 

Germs  of  good  and  bad  in  every  heart,  129. 

Gethsemane,  371. 

Ghost,  Amiel  a  living,  357. 

Gifts  considered  acquisitions,  33. 

Gioberti  on  the  French  mind,  280. 

Gioconda,  la,  290,  324. 

Glory  of  God,  804. 

Glow  worm,  84. 

God,  communion  with,  1;  conquest  of,  55,  66;  harmony  with,  163, 
181;  life  in,  123. 

"God  and  my  right,"  148,  251;  and  Nature  contrasted,  141;  recogni- 
tion of,  217;  submission  to,  147,  280,  368,  369,  375,  377;  will 
of,  277. 

God's  love  and  chastisement,  333;  omnipresence,  291;  perfection,  229. 

Goethe,  26;  contrasted  with  Rousseau,  140;  on  fame,  299;  on  self- 
obscurity,  1C5. 

Goethe's  want  of  soul,  289;  complex  nature,  239. 

"  Good  news,"  of  Christianity,  187. 

"Good  society,"  232. 

Good,  sum  of,  perhaps  alwavs  the  same,  180;  victory  of,  137,  193, 
194. 

Goodness  and  beauty,  301,302;  character  of,  328,  329;  conquests  of, 
314;  philosophy  of,  274;  truest  judge,  359. 

Gospel,  Amiel's  belief  in  the,  268;  blessings  of  the,  178,  179;  the 
Eternal,  188;  why  successful.  240,  241. 

Great  men,  141,  142;  and  small  things,  291. 

Greeks,  changes  in  character  of  the,  140;  lessons  from  the,  41. 

Grief,  luxury  of,  245;  results  of,  59,  60. 

Griefs  which  cannot  be  shared,  368. 

Growing  old,  855. 

Habere  non  Tiaheri,  49. 

Habit,  Amiel  a  creature  of,  140. 

Habits,  life  a  tissue  of,  7. 

Happiness,  Amiel's  thirst  for,  257 ;  contagious,  208 ;  cumulative,  66 ; 
defined,  885,  dreams  about,  72,  enjoyment  of,  33,  34;  impossible, 
145,  146;  pursuit  of,  192;  the  best,  806;  universal  yearning  for, 
333. 

Harmony  211;  blessings  of,  230,  231;  longing  for,  831. 

Hartmann,  244;  his  "  Philosophy  cf  the  Unconscious,"  208. 


386  INDEX. 

Havet's  "  Origines  du  Christianisme,"  270. 

Head  and  Heart,  14. 

Healing  power  of  life,  110. 

Health,  frailty  of,  95,  loss  of,  278;  and  happiness,  280;  and  the  outer 

world.  235 
Heart  and   intellect,   820,  855;  the  mainspring  of   life,   182.    149; 

yearnings  of  the,  146. 
Heartless  books,  360. 
Heavenly  moments,  241 
Hegel,  124,  270,  294;  and  Leibnitz,  236. 
Heim,  Charles,  155,  185. 
Heine  and  Laniennais  contrasted,  200 
Heraclitus,  saying  of,  254. 
Herder's  "  Lichtstrahlen,"  205. 
Hermits  and  the  world,  319. 
Heroism,  5. 

Hindoo  genius,  the,  286. 
Hirn's  three  principles,  198,  199. 

Historical  justice,  tardiness  of,  375,  law  of  tempests,  342. 
History  and  conscience,  21;  three  views  of,  190,  varied  views  of,  174. 
Hohness  v.  liberty,  173,  requisites  for,  265. 

Hope  and  duty,  168;  influence  of,  219,  and  melancholy,  269;  not  for- 
bidden, 276, 
Bora  est  benefaciendi,  282. 
Horace,  311. 
Hugo,  Victor,  a  Gallicized  Spaniard,  116;  his  exaggerations,  307;  his 

"  Contemplations,"  108;  his  literary  and  Titanic  power,  116,  117; 

his  "  Miserabies,"  114;  "  Paris,"  307. 
Human  and   Divine   union,   188,  life,   the    three  modes  of  (action, 

thought,  speech),  123,  personality  ignored,  78;  solidarity,  152. 
Humanism  and  religion,  14,  15,  of  Cherbuliez,  124. 
Humanity,  a  higher  standard  of,    151,  benefactors  and  masters  of, 

209,  candidates  for,  310;  ideal  of,  18;  slow  development  of,  300, 

326,  363;  toughness  of,  238. 
Humboldt,  239 

Humility  precedes  repentance,  66;  (true), = contentment,  59. 
Humorist,  the  true.  170. 
Hyacinthe,  Pere.  258. 
Hypocrisy  and  deception,  112. 

Ideal  conceptions,  327. 

Ideal,  diminution  of  the,  198;  malady  of  the,  71;  V.  material,  129;  r. 

real,  27,  35,  36.  133;  thirst  for  the,  335. 
Ideals,  hypocritical,  358- 
Ideas,  anarchy  of,  304:  formation  of,  290. 
Ill-health,  Amiel's,  279.  293. 
Ill-nature,  conquest  of,  360. 
Illness,  summonses  of,  95. 
Illusion,  benefit  of,  220. 
Illusions,  human,  175,  192,  342. 
Illustrious  men.  disappearance  of.  10. 
Imagination  v.  character,  11;  enfranchised,  253;  influence  of,  205;  of 

Rousseau,  139. 


INDEX.  387 

Immortality,  belief  in,  168;  consolations  of,  267;  and  annikilation, 
91. 

Impersonality,  206;  temptations  of,  326. 

Indecision,  76;   Amiel's,  311. 

Independence,  Amiel's.  366;  twofold  aspect  of,  210. 

Independent  tliought  of  Geneva,  352. 

Indifference  of  cultivated  classes,  228. 

Indignation,  incapacity  for,  245. 

Individual  and  society,  343;  (the)  v.  duty,  846. 

Individualism  an  absurdity,  177;  epoch  of,  151;  and  equality,  17; 
evils  of,  330. 

Individ uaUty=character  and  temperament,  205,  rarity  of,  316. 

Inevitable,  Amiel's  resignation  to  the,  303;  acceptance  of  the,  343; 
tlie,  296. 

Infallibility  of  judgment  rare,  207. 

Infinite,  communion  with  the,  27,  28;  penetration  of  the,  344;  thirst 
for  the,  347. 

Infinites,  infinity  of,  229. 

Influence  of  men  of  action,  343. 

Injustice,  Amiel  too  sensitive  to,  367. 

Inner  life  essential,  144. 

Instinct  precedes  feeling,  50. 

Institutions,  capacity  of,  226. 

Instruction  and  amusement,  332. 

Insubordination,  increase  of,  130. 

Intellect,  aristocratic  character  of  the,  329;  and  heart,  319,  355;  re- 
ligion of,  14;  and  stupidity,  303. 

Intellectualism,  255. 

Interests,  want  of,  165. 

International  influences,  234. 

Internationale,  the,  237. 

Introspection,  235. 

Intuition,  359. 

Invalid,  individuality  of  every,  265,  266. 

Invisible,  the  universal  witness  to  the,  333. 

Involution,  304. 

Irony,  law  of,  301. 

Irreparable,  thought  of  the,  162,  191. 

Isms,  the  modern,  350. 

Italy,  Christianity  in,  311. 

Jansenists  v.  Jesuits,  335. 
Jesuits  v.  Jansenists,  335. 
Jesus  and  the  churches,  181;  and  Socrates,  14;  comprehension  of,  4, 

5;  faith  of,  187. 
Job's  murmurings,  376;  trials,  66. 

"  Jocelyn  "  and  "  Paul  et  Virginie,"  tenderness  and  purity  of,  109. 
"John  Halifax,  Gentleman,"  148. 
Joubert,  7;  Doudan's  resemblance  to,  297. 
Journal,  Amiel's  estimate  of  his,  295;    function  of  the  private,  24, 

312,  313. 
Joy  expressed  by  tears,  138. 
Judaism  of  nineteenth  century,  4. 


388  INDEX 

Judgment,  impersonality  of,  76;  of  character,  359;  self-interested, 
228;  and  understanding,  241. 

Justice  defined,  814;  forgetfulness  of,  228;  v.  love,  212;  will  ulti- 
mately prevail,  878. 

Kant's  radicale  Bote,  209. 

Kindness  and  wariness  incompatible,  829;  the  principle  of  tact,  20. 

Krause's  religious  serenity,  25. 

Laboremus,  206. 

LalMjrious  lives,  227. 

Labor  question  unsolved,  42. 

La  Bruyere,  311. 

La  Fontaine,  298. 

Lamartine,  207;  his  "Preludes,"  282;  his  dislike  of  Fontaine,  810. 
311. 

Lamennais,  139;  contrasted  with  Heine,  200. 

Laprade,  Victor  de,  affectation  of,  340. 

Last  words  and  looks  of  the  dying,  185,  186. 

Latent  genius,  89. 

Latin  world,  the,  248,  815. 

Laveleye's  "  L'Avenir  Religieux,"  299. 

Law,  eternity  of,  327. 

Lectures,  Amiel's,  333. 

Legal  fictions  and  institutions,  199. 

Legouve's  Nos  jUs  et  nos  files,  331. 

Leibnitz,  194;  v.  Hegel,  236;  and  Spinoza,  878. 

Lessing's  principle,  57. 

Letter  and  spirit,  34. 

Letters,  studied,  325. 

Leveler,  the  modern,  122. 

Leveling  down,  181. 

Liberalism,  political,  200. 

Liberty  and  religion,  217;  and  revolution,  224;  diminished  by  de- 
mocracy, 131;  in  God,  47;  possible  suppression  of,  218;  the  true 
friends  of,  218;  true,  364;  v.  authority,  200;  v.  holiness,.  173. 

Life,  aim  of,  58;  a  calvary,  89;  a  dream,  167;  a  perpetual  combat, 
300;  brevity  of.  125,  142,  145,  162.  191,  223,  225,  293;  definition 
of,  295;  different  aspects  of,  191;  drama,  a  monologue,  75;  frail- 
ity  of,  339;  matter  to  be  spiritualized,  356;  melancholy  aspect  of, 
119;  ocean  of,  50;  proper  treatment  of ,  343;  the  Divine,  35;  the 
true,  365;  tenacity  of,  368;  v.  logic,  262,  263. 

Light  and  beauty,  117;  without  warmth,  14. 

Link  of  humanity,  the,  838. 

Literary  ambition,  Amiel's,  818;  career,  Amiel's  impediments  to  a, 
52;  "  gentlemen,"  282. 

Literature  and  science,  288. 

Little  things,  influence  of,  174. 

Logic  V.  life,  262,  263. 

"  Lorelei,"  814. 

Lotze,  177. 

Jjovable,  Amiel's  taste  for  the,  355. 

Love,  24,  77;    a  young  girl's,  279;    and    contemplation,  102;    and 


INDEX.  389 

knowledge,  14;  and  holiness,  power  of,  198;  eminently  religious, 
119,  161;  tendency  to  postpone,  186;  v.  justice,  114,  212;  woman's 
supreme  authority,  212. 

Lucian  and  Augustine  contrasted,  302. 

Luck,  good,  174. 

Luther  on  humanity,  237. 

Madness  defined,  254,  352. 

Maia,  225,  253,  255. 

Malignity  of  the  world,  367. 

Man  and  woman  contrasted,  218. 

"  Man  "  in  essence  and  principle,  287;  the  true,  35. 

Mannerisms,  311,  312. 

Manou  on  Woman,  196. 

Many,  the,  and  the  few,  1.52. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  aim  of.  121. 

Martyrdom,  nobility  of,  365. 

Martyrs,  190. 

Masses,  frivolity  of  the,  143;  impetuosity  of  the,  272;  the,  and  dem- 
agogues, 237,  238. 

Material  results,  364. 

Materialism,  18,  35,  314. 

Mathematical  and  historical  intelligence,  48;  v.  sensuous  minds,  68. 

May,  caprices  of,  196. 

Mediocrity,  era  of,  17;  the  result  of  equality,  180. 

Meditation,  joys  of  silent,  336. 

Melancholy,  Amiel's  tendency  to,  158,  162,  182,  222,  225,  231,  232, 
276,  285,  286;  and  hope,  269;  below  the  surface,  58;  universality 
of,  129. 

Memories,  painful,  320. 

Memory  a  catacomb,  Amiel's,  351;  deficient,  65. 

Men  and  things,  Amiel's  relation  to,  106. 

Mephistopheles,  weakness  of,  228. 

Merimee's  letters  to  Panizzi,  374. 

Method  in  religion,  secondary,  154. 

Michelet,  53. 

MUieu,  a  w-holesome,  306. 

Millennium,  the,  374. 

Mind  and  soul,  292;  and  the  infinite,  326;  described,  853,  357  ;  forms 
and  metamorphoses  of  (the  one  subject  of  study),  2;  not  phenome- 
nal, 292;  science  of,  274;  the  march  of,  373. 

Minds,  abstract  and  concrete,  48;  well  governed,  166. 

Minors  in  perpetuity,  218. 

Miracles,  248. 

"  Miserables,"  Victor  Hugo's,  114. 

Misspent  time,  283. 

Mist  and  sunshine,  148. 

Misunderstandings,  3,  159. 

Modern  man,  character  of  the,  143. 

"Modern  spirit,"  the,  239. 

Modesty,  44. 

"  Moi,"  the  central  consciousness,  298 

Moliere,  311;  on  reasoning,  231. 


390  INDEX. 

Monad,  the  human,  261. 

Monads,  conscious,  296. 

Mongol  invasion,  341. 

Monod,  Adolphe,  18. 

Montaigne,  311. 

Montesquieu,  260;  saying  of,  271. 

Moonlight  reflections,  268. 

Moralists,  sugar,  331. 

Moral  law,  reconciliation  of  faith  and  science  by  the,  268;  philosophy 

of  Geneva,  352;  v.  natural,  212;  v.  physical  science,  274. 
Morals,  physchology  and  system  of,  46. 
Morning  and  evening  conditions,  45. 
Mortification,  215. 

Mozart  and  Beethoven  contrasted,  51. 
'*  Much  ado  about  nothing,"  292. 
Mulock,  Miss,  148. 
Multitude,  flattery  of  the,  271. 

Music,  Wagner's,  depersonalized,  77,  78;  effects  of,  211. 
Musician,  the  modern,  309. 
Musset  on  De  Laprade,  340. 
Mystery  of  Providence,  174. 
Mysticism,  so-called,  56. 

Napoleon,  174. 

National    competitions,  181;  types,    151;    preferences  unknown    to 

Amiel,  308. 
Nationalities,  ancient  and  modern,  54;  imply  prejudice.  111;  Quinet's 

studies  of,  97. 
Nationality  and  the  State,  76. 
Nations,  destinies  of  (.dischylus),  256. 
Natural  man,  the,  209;  n.  moral,  212 
Naturalist  thinkers  (q>v6iHoi),  274. 
Nature,  Amiel's  enjoyment,  of,  163,  178,  183,  192,  221,  241,  278,  281, 

282,  313,  320.  332,  338,  353,  358;  enjoyment  of,  3,  15,  26,  27,  28. 

29,  37,  42,  57,  58.  80,  104,  105,  106.  127,  135;  continuity  of,  354; 

V.  conventions,  315;  and  God  contrasted,  142;  the  kindly  voice  of, 

358;  the  law  of,  212;  without  man,  78;  worshio  of,  240. 
Naville,  Ernest,  80;  on  "  The  Eternal  Life,"  91,  93. 
Neckar,  the  river,  103. 
Necker  de  Saussure,  Madame,  345,  352. 
Negative  minds,  danger  of,  111. 
Neo-Hegelians,  13. 
New  birth,  the,  90. 
Nicole  and  Pascal,  205. 
Nihilism,  Russian,  237. 
Nirvana,  337. 
Nobility,  true,  149. 
Nobility  and  vulgarity,  129. 
Normal,  the,  to  be  chosen,  269. 
North,  poetry  of  the,  43. 
Nostalgia  of  happiness,  87. 
Nothing  is  lost,  123. 
Nothingness.  220;  man's,  224, 225;  realization  of,  72,  78. 


INDEX.  391 

Obedience  the  chief  mark  of  religion,  279. 

Obenriann,  208. 

Oblivion  man's  portion,  339. 

Obscure  self,  the,  74,  75. 

Obstinacy,  93. 

Odjssey,  the  divine,  35. 

Old  age,  319;  our  views  clearest  in,  336. 

Old,  the  art  of  growing,  279. 

Olivier's  "Chansons  du  Soir,"  231. 

Opinion,  23;  and  belief,  361;  too  much  despised  by  Amiel,  367. 

Optimism  and  pessimism,  193,  267. 

Orators,  258,  259. 

Order,  94;  attempts  at,  328;  harmony  with  universal,  306;  and  law, 

224;  the  only  positive  good,  335. 
Oriental  element,  benefit  of  the,  143;  happiness,  336. 
Originality,  modern  lack  of,  316;  ridicule  the  result  of,  272. 
Origins  all  secret,  289. 
Outside  and  inside,  15,  35,  57,  281. 
Overrating,  result  of,  245. 
Oxygen  and  azote,  human,  303. 

Pain,  63,  67;  and  comfort,  19. 

Pantheism,  148;  of  Krause,  248. 

Pantheistic  disinterestedness,  286. 

Paradise,  echoes  of,  211. 

Paradox,  140. 

Paris,  the  French  townsman's  axis,  165. 

Pascal,  302;  and  Nicole,  205;  on  development,  130. 

Passion  and  reason,  226. 

Passionless  man,  the,  76. 

Passions,  life  of  the,  62;  conquest  of  the,  104. 

Past,  poetry  of  the,  145.  Reminiscences  of  the,  133,  134;  the  inter- 
preter of  the  present,  260;  woman,  the  priestess  of  the,  256. 

Patuos  and  beauty,  86. 

Patience,  the  test  of  virtue,  147. 

Peace,  307;  true,  163;  two-fold  aspect  of,  265. 

Pedantic  books,  177. 

Pelletan's  "  Profession  de  fo',"  52. 

Pensee  writers,  9. 

"  Penseroso,"  Amiel'S,  183. 

People,  emotion  of  the,  349. 

Perfection  as  an  end,  154;  attainment  of,  294;  of  God,  229;  search 
for,  65. 

Persiflage,  359. 

Pessimism,  244;  and  optimism,  193,  267;  Amiel's  tendency  to,  162; 
helplessness  of,  206. 

Petofi's  poems,  340. 

Pharisaical  people,  348. 

Philistinism,  increase  of,  180. 

Philosopher,  ambition  of  the,  331. 

Philosophy  defined,  249,  250;  and  religion,  ?16. 

Physical  v.  moral  science,  274. 


392  INDEK 

Piety  defined,  330;  and  religion  contrasted,  129. 

Pity,  exhibition  of,  317;  and  contempt,  176. 

Plaid,  Xhe  chivalrous,  134. 

Plato  v.  Saint  Paul,  236. 

Plato's  "  Dialogues,"  51. 

Playthings  of  the  world,  152. 

Pleasure  and  duty,  286. 

Plotinus  and  Proclus,  vision  of,  887. 

Plutolatry,  214. 

Poet  and  philosopher  contrasted,  47, 

Poetry  flayed  by  science,  232;  of  childhood  and  mature  age,  99:  the 

expression  of  a  soul,  323. 
Points,  straining  after,  289. 
Political  liberty  of  England,  157;  windbags,  330. 
Politician,  aim  of  the Tionest,  271. 
Popular  harangues,  258. 
Portraits  and  wax  figures  contrasted,  323. 
Poverty  a  crime  in  England,  149. 
Practical  life,  Amiel  unsuited  for,  202. 
Prayer,  blessings  of,  330. 

Prejudice  essential  to  nationalities.  111;  better  than  doubt,  111. 
Prestige,  French  worship  of,  234. 
Pride  and  discouragement,  7;  moral  and  religious,  358;  two  condi* 

tions  of,  57. 
Priesthood,  domination  of  the,  218. 
"  Prince  Vitale,"  Cherbuliez.  123,  124. 
Principiis  obsta,  210. 
Privilege  only  temporary,  362. 
Professor,  obligations  of  a,  285. 
Professorial  lectures,  333. 
Progress,  absolute  and   relative,  269;    results  of,  363,  364;    Victof 

Hugo's  religion  of,  114. 
Protestant  v.  Catholic  countries,  217. 

Protestantism  defined,  153;  advance  guard  of,  199;  historical,  199- 
Protestants,  liberal,  199. 
Proudhon,  139;  his  axiom,  245. 
Providence,  277. 
Province  defined,  350. 

Psychological  study,  Amiel's  aptitude  tor,  205i. 
Psychologist,  the,  235. 
Psychology,  applied,  293,  294. 
Punctum  saliens,  358. 
Punishment  softened  by  faith,  60. 

Quantitative  and  qualitative,  58. 

Quinet,  53. 

Quintilian,  saying  of,  259. 

Rabelais,  311. 
Racine,  112,  115. 
Radical  jugglery,  271. 
Rain,  the  country  in,  242. 
Rationalism,  98. 


INDEX.  393 

Readj-made  ideas,  57. 

Real  and  ideal,  133,  334. 

Realism  in  painting,  323;  suppression  of,  233. 

Reality  and  appearance,  281;  character  with  no  sense  of,  165. 

Reason  and  passion,  226. 

Reconciliation  and  Christianity,  333. 

Redeemed,  motive  power  of  the,  187. 

Regenerate  man,  211. 

Reinvolution,  psychological,  357. 

Religion  and  lilierty,  217;  and  philosophy,  196,  200,  216;  and  piety 

contrasted,  129;  indestructible,  158;  life  in  God,  195;  phases  of, 

329,  330;    refreshing  power  of,  144;    and   Utilitarianism,  900; 

without  mysticism,  100. 
Religions,  multitude  of,  176;  effect  of  political,  311. 
Religious  man,  the  (an  intermediary),  306;  views,  Amiel's,  371. 
Reminiscences,  vague,  118. 
Renaissance,  the,  Fontaine's  horizon,  311. 
Renan,  178;  his  object,  style,  313. 
Renan's  "  Les  Evangiles,"  313;  "  Vie  de  Jesus,"  240;  "St.  Paul," 

201. 
"  Rene"  and  "  Atala,"  Chateaubriand's,  83,  84. 
Renunciation,  benefit  of,  366. 
Repentance  and  sanctification  too  exclusively  preached,  101;  simple, 

215. 
Republic,  the  normal,  351. 
Repugnance,  Amiel's  twofold,  348. 
Resignation,  manly,  29. 
Responsibility,  12;  dread  of,  89. 
Restlessness,  Amiel's,  70,  72. 
Reveries,  28,  30. 
Reville,  199. 
Revolt  instinctive,  209. 

Revolution  and  Catholicism,  217;  «.  liberty,  224. 
Ridicule,  fear  of.  272. 

Right  apart  from  duty,  a  compass  with  one  leg,  830. 
Rights'  abstract,  330. 
River,  a  beautiful  life  compared  to  a,  355. 
Roads,  high  and  cross,  269. 
Role,  our  twofold,  371. 
Romance  peoples,  the,  68. 

Rosenkrantz's  "  History  of  Poetry,"  67;  on  Hegel's  logic,  105. 
Rousseau  and  Chateaubriand,  83,  84;  an  ancestor  in  all  things,  140; 

his  letter  to  Archbishop  Beaumont,  139;  his  regard  for  style, 

313;  on  savage  life.  290. 
Ruge's  "  Die  Academic,"  13,  15. 
Russian  national  character,  68,  69. 

Sacerdotal  dogmatism,  99. 

Sadness  and  gayety,  318. 

St.  Evremond,  311;   James'  Epistle,  31;  John's  Gospel,  4;    Martin's 

summer,  42;  Paul  and  St.  John,  18;  Paul  and  Plato,  236;  Simon 

and  Bayle,  205. 
Sainte-Beuve,  178,  206,  284,  297. 


394  INDEX. 

Saintly  alchemy,  187. 

Sanctiiication  implies  martyrdom,  88. 

Sarcasm,  repulsiveness  of,  360. 

Satan,  possible  conversion  of,  137;  the  father  of  lies,  136;  Ins 
territory,  99. 

Satiety,  preservative  against,  354. 

Satirist,  the,  170. 

Savoir  vivre,  234. 

Skepticism  and  intellectual  independence,  157. 

Schelling,  167. 

Schellingian  speculation,   185. 

Scherer,  26,  155,  178,  207,  224. 

Scheveningen,   260. 

Schiller  on  superiority  and  perfection,  99. 

Schleiermacher,  99,  239;    his  "Monologues,"  21. 

Scholasticism,  249. 

Schopenhauer,  194,  203,  204,  208;    his  pessimism,  267. 

Science  and  faith,  216,  246,  267;  and  literature,  232;  and  religion, 
274;    and  wisdom,   132;    march  of,  304;    weakness  of,  27. 

Sea,  the,  262;    conversation  of  the,  166. 

Secr6tan's  philosophy,  184. 

Secrets,  hiddei^  59. 

Seed-sowing,  31. 

Self-abandonment,  102;  annihilation  of,  306;  approval  and  self- 
contempt,  57,  conquest,  88;  contempt,  excessive,  230;  con- 
versation with,  312;  criticism,  104;  distrust,  Amiel's,  62,  65, 
98,  155;  education,  hatred  of,  305;  glorification,  81;  govern- 
ment misunderstood,  350;  ignorance,  cause  of,  159;  interest 
V.  truth,  189;  love,  58,  63;  preservation  a  duty,  322;  re- 
newal, 239;  renunciation,  2.  64,  72,  182;  rule  the  essence  of 
gentlemanliness,  149;    sacrifice,  227,  277. 

Selfishness  and  individual  rights,  330. 

Seneca,  195. 

Sensation,  nature  of,  166. 

Sensorium  commune  of  nature.  353. 

Separation  of  modern  society,  228. 

Separatism,  350. 

Septimius  Severus,  motto  of.  206. 

Sex,  the  virtue  of,  213. 

Shadow  and  substance,  280. 

Shakespeare,  112. 

Siefert's,  Louise,  "Les  StoTques,"  252. 

Silence  and  repose,  166;    effect  of,  26,  27;    of  nature,  356. 

Sin,  definition  of,  210;  frivolous  idea  of,  256;  pardon  of,  187; 
the  cardinal  question,   14. 

Singing,  rustic,  81 

Sismondi,  82. 

Sivaism,  244. 

Slavery,  42. 

Sleep.  49. 

Soap-bubble  symbol,  339. 

Social  charity  and  harsh  justice,  llo. 

Socialism,  international,  236. 


INDEX.  395 

Society,  233;  and  the  individual,  305 

l<ocii  Deisumus  (Seneca),  195. 

Socrates  and  Jesus,  14. 

Solitariness  of  life,  72. 

Solitary  life,  Amiel's,  86. 

Solitude,  human,  368. 

Soul,  abyss  of  the,  229;  and  mind,  292. 

Soul,   dominical   state  of  the,  336;  ghosts  of  the,  118;  history  of  a 

295;  three  powers  of  the  (counsel,  judgment,  and  action),  64. 
Soul's  wants  ignored  by  the  Church,  1()0. 

Southern  Europe,  statesmen  of,  218;  theater,  masks  of  the,  112. 
Sparrenhorn,  ascent  of  the,  222. 
Speech,  mystery  of,  31. 
Spinoza,  62;  and  Leibnitz,  373, 
Spirit,  voice  of  the  Holy,  306. 
Spiritual  existence,  327. 
Spontaneity,  the  question  of,  286. 
Stael,  Madame,  de,  284,  287;  on  nationalities,    308;  her    "  L'Allfr 

magne,"  352. 
Stahl's  "  Les  histoires  de  mon  Parrain,"  331. 
State,  the  model,  234;  true  foundations  of  a,  227. 
Statistical  progress  and  moral  decline,  17. 
Stendhal,  232. 

Stoicism,  274;  and  suicide.  168. 
Stoics,  the,  62. 
Strauss,  361. 

Struggle  of  opposing  forces,  331. 
Stupidity  and  intellect,  303. 
Style,  Kenan's  main  object,  313. 
Sub- Alpine  history,  54. 

Subjectivity  and  objectivity,  19,41,  43,  79,  106;  of  experience,  166. 
Submission,  129;  not  defeat,  153. 
Subtleties  not  helpful,  343. 
Subtlety  and  taste,  297. 
Success,  174. 
Suffering,  way  of,  230;   produces  depth,  208;  triumph  of,  214;  resuV 

of,  277. 
Suffering,  universality  of,  333. 
Sunshine  and  mist  contrasted,  148. 
Supernatural,  the,  153,  247. 
Swiss  critics,  81;  ungracefulness  of  the,  179. 
Sybarites,  modern,  331. 
Symbols,  decay  of,  361. 
Sympathy,  15,  and  criticism,  325,  moral,  243;  of  Amiel,  155;  witJi 

our  fellows,  177. 
Symphonic  pictures,  Berlioz's,  309 
Synonyms,  passion  for,  311. 
Systems  defined,  141. 

Tacitus  V.  the  chroniclers,  313. 
Tact,  measure,  and  occasion,  319. 
Taine  on  the  Ancient  Regime,  289. 
Taine's  "  English  Literature."  232 


896  INDEX 

Talent  and  genias,  76;  triumphs  of,  140. 
Tamerlane,  341. 

Taste  ignored  in  German  aesthetics,  238;  v.  conscience,  881. 
Teaching,  successful,  230;  the  art  of,  129. 
Tears  and  joy,  215;  origin  of,  138. 
Temperament,  character,  and  individuality,  204. 
Temptation  our  natural  state,  210. 
Temptations,  etc.,  never  ending,  147. 
Tenderness  toward  our  neighbors,  317. 
Thales,  hylozoism  of,  289. 
Theism,  Christian,  153. 
Theory  and  practice,  19,  70. 
Thought  and  feeling,  259,  a  kind  of  opium,  77. 
Time,  tiight  of,  109,  191. 

Timidity,  Amiel's,  203,  288;  and  pride,  Amiel's,  102. 
Tocqueville,  16,  on  obedience,  158. 
"  To  every  man  his  turn,"  354. 
Too  late,  135. 

Toppfer,  30;  his  tourist  class,  165. 
Totality,  Amiel's  tendency  to,  203. 
Tradition  v.  force,  131. 
Trial  and  duty,  148. 
Trials,  67. 

True  love  defined,  367. 

Truth  and  error,  43;  and  faith,  246,  247;  common  fear  of,  189;  identi- 
fication with,  56;  rarely  sought  for,  305;  the  test  of  religion,  299. 
Truthfulness,  59. 
Truths,  philosophic,  290 
Turin,  54. 
Twentieth  century,  newspaper  of  the,  374. 

Ugliness  and  beauty,  243;  disappearance  of,  132. 

Unsconscious  nature  of  life,  101,  110. 

Understanding  and  judgment,  241;  the  art  of,  151;  things,  requisitei 

for,  324. 
Unexpected,  the,  66. 
Unfinished,  the,  141. 
Unions,  a  mystery  in  all,  303. 

Unity  of  action,  Amiel's  want  of,  325,  326;  of  everything,  61. 
Universal  suffrage,  272. 
Universe,  different  relations  of  the,  46. 
Unknown,  domain  of  the,  336. 
Unselfishness  implies  love,  176. 
Usefulness,  Amiel's  doubts  as  to  his,  285,  286. 
Utilitarian  materialism,  18. 

Vacherot's  "  La  Religion,"  195. 

Vae  victis,  338 

Vanity,  the  last  sign  of,  323. 

Vesta  and  Beelzebub,  13. 

Via  dolorosa,  90. 

Vinet,  40;  his  praise  of  weak  things,  300 "  ' 

Virtue  a  gine  qua  non,  227.  noimaiu 


IHTDEX.  397 

Visionaries,  good  and  bad,  46. 

Voltaire,  177,  311. 

Voltarianism,  270. 

Valgarization,  causes  of  modern,  315. 

Vulgarity  and  nobility,  129. 

Wagner,  77. 

Want,  sense  of,  71. 

War,  800;  uses  of,  365. 

War  rumors,  lessons  of,  341. 

Wariness  and  kindness  incompatible,  829. 

Wasted  life,  135. 

Watchwords  of  the  people,  348. 

"  We"  always  right,  272. 

Weak,  charity  toward  the,  328,  329. 

Weather,  caprices  of  the,  122. 

Weber,  Dr.  Ueorge,  104. 

Weltgeist,  the,  374. 

Weltmude,  the.  162. 

West  and  East  contrasted,  143. 

Whole,  sense  of  the,  106. 

Whole-natured  men,  disappearance  of,  230. 

"  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young,"  147. 

Wickedness,  fascination  of,  136. 

Will,  England  the  country  of,  150;  feebleness  of  the,  61;  preceeded 

by  feeling  and  instinct,  50;  the,  79. 
Winter  in  Switzerland,  338. 
Wisdom,  121;  the  heritage  of  the  few,  226. 
Wisdom's  two  halves,  254. 
Wit,  Doudan's,  297. 
Woman  a  "monstre  incompri/iensible,"  186,  187;  and  man  contrasted, 

212. 
Woman's  faithful  heart,  119;  family  influence,  256. 
Women,  austere,  363;  emancipation  of,  196;  Manou's  views  of,  196; 

never  orators,  253,  258. 
Women's  love,  173. 
Words,  careless  use  of,  315. 
Work  the  flavor  of  life,  376. 
World,  meanness  of  the,  339 
Worship,  humanity  needs  a,  178. 
Worth,  94;  individual,  154. 
Writing,  the  art,  288. 

Young,  secret  of  remaining,  121. 

Youth  and  manhood,  29;  renewal  of,  193;  revival  of,  239. 

Youthful  impressions,  57;  presumptions,  269- 

Zeno,  22,  335. 

THK  EKD. 


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